Happy Birthday Daddy, Wherever You Are

June 11, 2020. Daddy would have been 79 today. January 04, 2014 was the day he left us, losing a battle with a bodily injury for the first time in his life. What 2 deadly road accidents could not do, that stubborn metastasized cancer accomplished, but not before he quashed the ominous predictions from the best cancer specialists in India for 2 years. The doctors gave him 3–6 months; he lived for almost 24. Remarkably, there was not a day when he gave up, or he stopped working. As I reminisce often since he passed away, I cannot recall a single moment when he bemoaned his fate. I am yet to meet somebody/anybody who can equal his resilience, his humility, and his gratification of whatever life gives. He was a master of making lemonades out the lemons life gave him. There is no possible way he ever heard of the idiom. It was just in him to beat life at its own game.

The pain from all those metastasized bones would get to him every day but never enough to subjugate his spirits. In went a couple painkillers and out came his enthusiasm, every day. He was on the computer all the time, when most in his generation were ‘keyboard-shy’. He was always connected with me, my sister, his 4 grandchildren and his 5 siblings. He was the Sun who held all his brothers and sister in shapely orbits; he kept them connected. We talked on the phone almost every day; not very long conversations ever, but we talked. We video-conferenced often, when video-conferencing was not in vogue; he had figured out a way somehow — he had to see his grandchildren.

I miss him today. Maybe it’s the lockdown, or maybe it’s because I have been writing a lot lately, which has me drenched in memories. I collected 50 of his pictures and made a video of it, replete with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in the background. It seemed appropriate. But I think the pictures were but an excuse to give my memories a shape and a form that I could share with my mom, sister, his siblings and all of those he left behind.

I have been thinking about him a lot lately. But I know he’s in a peaceful place. And we are left with his memories. We shall savor those and celebrate the great life he lived. He’s with his father, a person he loved, respected and admired. He’s also now joined by his eldest sibling whom he adored. He’s not alone. I shall not bereave him any more. He’s in me. He’s in Shruti & Arjun. He’s with all of us.