I believe tears also many times symbolize weakness, sorrow, short life. But I am sure enough that only pronouncing his name would bring tears in her eyes even after nearly three years of his move to heaven.Even my little cousin was able to recognize my mom's pain, as she sat there dressed in all white, on the thirteenth date of her husband's demise. She's a mischievous child in the family, but that day she was very careful and calm. She didn't ask a single question; neither did she throw any tantrum. She just looked at his garland-adorned photo frame and then looked at my mom. Over and over again.
I kept wondering what was going on in her mind. Did she understand what was going on? Did she know what my mom's white dress and her face sans make-up or ornaments, watery eyes, framed photograph of my father, and the presence of so many people with mournful faces mean?
Nostalgia regularly draws me back to the days we spent as a happy, nuclear family, and I often forget he is no more with us. I am sure he feels the same nostalgia, somewhere, too.
Family and friends who had come to bid their last farewell to him and offer their sympathy to us on that ill-fated day might have thought I'm a stone-hearted person, because I didn't shed a single drop of tear. Many people openly encouraged me cry my heart out. "Cry all you want, dear. You can cry out loud, your father is no more," they said. But I was busy consoling my mother, his widow.
But I must admit that there was no night I had spent without crying in my bed, thinking about him, my mother, and my big brother. I always wonder if my brother feels alone. Whether he misses daddy's wise guidance in life.
Brother, daddy's not coming back home. But I'm proud you're your own hero. You've learnt to survive in this world.
We don't talk about him now. We didn't even then. Mom tried and we listened, but I never responded. Neither did my brother. I guess I know why he didn't. We don't want questions and hatred in our home. We want to keep him in our heart and not in our mind.
I hate to realize that all love, paternal and lover's, is just an illusion. It's all about attachment and habit. That's what I have learnt. People may think otherwise, but no love is loyal either. People come into our lives and they go. But the world doesn't end for us, for nobody. Yes, it hurts, it pains, but life goes on.
A mirror, when it breaks, will never be the same again even after all the broken pieces are glued together and we can still see our reflection on it. It's just that it will continue to work. So, mom, we might not see you in red sari ever. (I wish I could but they say red is so not your color now.) But the world certainly doesn't end. If it did, we wouldn't have move forth in our life.
We're leading our lives without him. As for mom, she's more attached to us now.
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