Human Mortality

Recently, I have witnessed the experience of friends dealing with the suffering of beloved aging parents. While the ailing parents suffer physical pain, their children must cope with the emotional debility and helplessness in the face of the oncoming and inevitable end. I have repeatedly encountered the unlikely sentiment that death is preferable to a diminished and painful life that no longer has meaning.

I am deeply moved by the (now well-known) experience of a neurosurgeon diagnosed with lung cancer in his thirties and his wife, as they bravely dealt with and documented the end. I am struck with their struggle to imbue his remaining life with meaning, their decision to have a baby and their belief that one always has a choice.

Few of us have answers and I certainly have only questions… So, I turned to the wisdom of the Hindu scriptures and the words of the ancient sages to find these comforting words: ‘The body has death, but not the soul. The body sleeps, the soul flies.’ and ‘He who lives the inner life knows that death is truly his resting-room. To him, death is anything but extinction. It is a meaningful departure.’ Yesterday, I wandered among the gravestones in the Christian cemetery across the street from my Alexandria home and read several words of comfort in the epitaphs: ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’ and ‘He shall receive, in the world to come, eternal light.’

I’m sure we each seek to make our lives more meaningful each day. At the same time, we will each have to come to terms with our mortality. The New York Times so eloquently describes the 'symptoms of dying': https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/well/live/the-symptoms-of-dying.html

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/human-mortality/

 

The Little Boat

For a very long time now, the little boat has lived in her protected cove. Here she bobs on gentle waves, surrounded by the friendly familiar fish and safe from dangerous choppy seas. She carries only a distant memory of the open ocean and the peril lurking in its depths.

This little boat had once been new and shiny and her pretty painted colors distinguished her from all the rest. Foolishly, she braved the high seas: riding the great waves, glorying in the sunny skies and believing the waters would stay blue forever. She was unprepared for the unexpected storm that rolled forth from the seemingly calm heavens. She was battered by the deadly giant breakers. She almost buckled and capsized before the onslaught of these implacable elements. Still, her spirit remained unbroken and kept her going till the storm abated. Eventually, she found her little cove and righted herself to an even keel. The sun emerged to shine kindly upon her again.

While the colors of the little boat are somewhat worn, her spirit remains strong and her spine unbent. Today, her beauty has depth and is layered with a wisdom and humility that she did not have before. She loves her sheltered cove, but also sees the beckoning ocean just beyond its mouth. Now seasoned with years of knowledge and understanding, will her thoughtful experience allow her to venture to the sea again?

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/the-little-boat/

Back in Time

I could hardly process all the thoughts that came crowding to my mind. The day stretched longer than expected, but finally I was settled in the back seat of this little car. We sped along at dusk, on an oft-traveled and once familiar road, to the small town where I was born. Here was once the happy home I couldn’t wait to see each winter holiday, through my boarding school years. Here once lived my beloved parents and precious siblings, who together constituted my earliest and most carefree world. Here we have celebrated joyful weddings, rejoiced in new arrivals and grieved heartbreaking loss – experiencing together the defining moments and emotional milestones that mark all human life.

Familiar landmarks flew by in the summer darkness as the little car ate up each oncoming mile and its engine continued a noisy drone. I steadied my emotions and ordered my thoughts in these three hours, as I journeyed to the past and picked through all the memories. I found myself smiling a few times and, in other instances, my eyes filled up and brimmed over silently in the concealing darkness.

But then, we turned into a gate, I rang a doorbell and a door opened to spill a wash of welcoming light. It was time to leave the past and come out of the dark into the welcoming lit-up present. It was time to let go of my sentimental nostalgia for what used to be. It was time to enter this joyful present and look forward to a hopeful future…

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/back-in-time/

Traversing Distances

This past week has seen me travel thousands of miles – from DC to Chicago, then Chicago to Zurich to Mumbai. I have been encapsulated in gravity-defying, gargantuan metal tubes with gigantic magic wings. I have been nourished and cared for in this unreal shell, insulated from freezing temperatures and unfeeling elements, far above the earth’s surface. I never cease to wonder at the incredible human progress that allows us to be transported thus, over vast lands and high mountains and deep oceans, to arrive unerringly at a safe and specific destination.

And, I have traversed other distances. I met with friends not seen in over a decade, using technology to find them and bridge the interim years. I navigated emotional spaces, using words and images transmitted miraculously over telephone and satellite cables. I spanned intellectual divides, with the realization that deep connections extend beyond rational minds…

While modern innovation makes each crossing possible, I believe all journeys must still end in human contact. Ultimately, it narrows down to warm connections, shared experience and the age-old human touch. I am blessed to have so many loved ones, in so many distant corners of the world. But there is another side to this coin. No matter where in the world I might be, there is always a beloved person I am removed from - till it’s time to travel back.

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/traversing-distances/

  

Story of the Wind Chimes

Few things are as pleasing as the mellow music played by gentle breezes on carefully crafted wind chimes. Oriental cultures believe these delicate bells, with their eclectic sounds, bring luck and prosperity. And then: my intricate copper wind chimes were artistically carved by the Tibetan monks at Norbulingka Monastery in Dharamsala, Himalayan home of the Dalai Lama for nearly 60 years.

Very early in the new millennium I travelled with my parents to Dharamsala, our last mountain holiday before Dad’s health limited road travel to distant places. We stayed at a little hotel in picture-perfect Naddi (their L-shaped room had a corner for my very small bed and a very large window with a breathtaking mountain view – a coin dropped out that window would fall in a valley hundreds of feet below!). It was then we visited Norbulingka and I acquired these wind chimes that never failed to lift my spirits even as they reminded me of our last, and most precious, excursion.

In the past 15 years I have changed six homes across three cities and these wind chimes have hung in every abode: harnessing pleasant breezes off the Arabian Sea in Mumbai, capturing cool autumn gusts in St. Louis and adorning wide, flowerpot-laden, balconies in Delhi. I moved to a DC flat last year and for the first time my wind chimes were relegated to a drawer. There was simply nowhere I could hang them… till last week. Last week these valued chimes became a present to adorn the newly purchased home of a dear friend – a most apt place for these benevolent bells to deliver their auspicious blessings.

As I hung up the wind chimes on a sunrise-facing patio, I knew the Atlantic breezes would soon come to play with them. Just for a moment, I was torn between the desire to hold on to something so precious and the knowledge that my beloved wind chimes needed to be where they would experience the breeze again. Everything (and every being) deserves an environment that will let it be what it is meant to be. Even more, it deserves an environment where it is pushed to become the best that it can be…

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/story-of-the-wind-chimes/

Outdoor Spaces

The thing I like best about America is her outdoor spaces. I love that one can walk along the street and not be jostled by crowds. I love that one can hike on mountain trails or stroll in city parks and not see another person for extended periods of time. Above all, I love that there are so many seasons when one can curl up with a favorite book along a river bank or in a shaded glade or on a private deck.

While I loved living in the vibrancy of India – with its color and chaos and crowds – it is only in the very high Himalaya that I enjoyed the true solitude of nature! There are few, if any, outdoor spaces on the sub-continent where one can look around and not see another living being. The overcrowding is becoming compounded by growing pollution, a deterrent even for the more determined outdoors lover. And then there is the punishing climate: long hot dry summers and brief intense winters, marked increasingly by a pall of smog.

Much of my time in DC is spent under the sky and walking has become a way of life. I walk most frequently to the metro, but I also walk to the grocery store, the chemist, the bank, the doctor, the dentist and even the DMV! I walk on cool Spring mornings and balmy Summer evenings and golden Autumn days and chilly Winter afternoons. Undoubtedly, I have become a walkaholic, never tiring of the river bank, the fresh air and the verdant spaces around me…

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/outdoor-spaces/

Complex Families

We had two sets of paternal grandparents. Our father (one among three brothers and three sisters) was a beloved child given in adoption to a neighborhood couple! Apparently, his biological father was moved by the plight of a childless neighbor and generously offered up his eldest son – I don’t think the women in the two households were consulted at all! In the early days, he enjoyed two pairs of loving parents, eating and sleeping where he pleased and being particularly pampered as a new and only child in his new home. He continued to associate with his siblings till he shifted with his adoptive parents, to a town less than 50 miles away.

As an only child (in a manner of speaking), dad likely enjoyed some material advantage over his siblings. Eventually, his marriage was arranged with another only child and they became parents to us – four boys and a girl. Our unusual history meant we siblings were not really linked with our aunts, uncles and cousins, though we met them at family events. As a result, we have always been deeply connected among ourselves and form a safe place for each other, even more so after the passing of our parents. Our 11 children (and their spouses) are mostly close-knit despite large distances. Our 11 grandchildren are growing quickly and will they stay in touch as their numbers increase? In any family tree, each subsequent generation grows further from the center – just as spreading branches constantly sprout new shoots and grow more distant from the rooted tree trunk.

I also see it as my role to stay attached with my husband’s siblings, ensuring my children are linked to his family as they are to mine… is this an Indian thing? Today, an Indian friend was describing how they stay bonded as a family, successfully using technology and planning periodic reunions. While births and deaths and weddings will always play a part in bringing families together and strengthening relationships, even across vast distances, should we play more active or affirmative roles? Conversely, is it unrealistic to expect our children and their children to divert energy from the business of growing independence and new alliances, in order to strengthen ties to their roots? I expect the answer, as in most things, is to find a balance…

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/complex-families/