-Sonam Chhomo

Perhaps this is my eulogy which I attempted to erase but in vain.

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As per my faith’s beliefs, a dead person is reborn at a maximum time of 49 days from the time of his/her death. In that process, we engage ourselves in delivering rituals which help them to move clearly on their next journey as a reincarnated soul.

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I never knew why I would suddenly become attached to memories of dead people as if their part of the story was yet to be finished somehow, or maybe it was my own desire to have that one last conversation with them before they left their earthly self. Be it Mokshi, whose incredulous journeys with my sister seemed to remind me of my own shortfalls as a younger sister or my grandmother whose only memory attached to my younger self is the last time I saw her lying on her deathbed in Naggar.
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And in the midst of all these memories, I remember you, Aane, even though you have been dead for three years now.
Somehow the death of someone seems to have an extreme effect on families. Either you become closer or avoid things and people more than usual. Your younger sister seems to have taken a lead in the first premise. She seems to be much more interested in us than she was four years ago. She sends us messages on valentine’s day and whatnot day, maybe to reduce her guilt of not knowing us sooner or maybe of the realisation that anyone could be lost to nature at any moment like it happened with you.
I was never close to you, I think for the most part I never felt any attachment from your side. The only thing which maybe kept us at the same plane was that time of the year when you would send us your self-knitted socks for us to wear. In the winters till this time too, I get compliments for wearing such cute, small woollen knitted socks and like always I take pleasure in announcing your name and your talent in specially creating these for us all. Even though these socks remain as the last reminiscent of our relationship, yet I never seem to forget some of our silent conversations.
Perhaps the reason why I remember you is the fact that there are so many words and conversations left unsaid between us two. I wanted to ask you the whys and the hows of so many situations which had undertaken in those two years when I was myself battling my own demons. I wanted to say sorry too for the way I acted impulsively and maybe cursed you for making my mom cry in the midst of that catastrophe. 

And even now as I write these down, it’s somehow become rather hard for me to write those bitter silent memories. Instead some vital energy seems to pull the strings of my brain to focus on our happier moments together; when it felt for the first time that you were trying to mend things between us. Maybe the bond which was supposed to   have been made years ago had begun appearing somewhat transparent then.

I could never say this to you but I had forgiven you at that moment itself and I had begun to pray to God every single day afterwards to let you live the way you always wanted to.

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It was a summerish, autumnish day, somewhere in a park in sector 15 in Chandigarh. The weather seemed so nice that I think you would have taken anyone to the park if I were not 

available at that moment itself. Yet I want to believe that you had planned it somehow for us to grow closer and build memories with me as an Aunt and niece would do in normal familial environments. A new phone camera seemed to be a good option to take a step ahead and I heard you asking me to click a picture. I hurriedly felt excited and I saw that smile on your face, maybe for the last time. Even though you had covered your head and a part of your face to hide those scars of radiation therapies, as you uncovered yourself in front of the camera and stood beside the bougainvilleasof someone’s house, I felt that you were the most beautiful, bold and courageous-looking Aunt I could ever ask for. 

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In that entire process, you also demanded to take selfies with me. I remember clicking a lot of them since you dismissed some of them as blurred pictures and works of bad light.
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I could never forget our bitter narrations but this was some sweet tale that replaced some of my dislike for you. And I felt happy for that moment and later, because in some ways I understood that you wanted to patch things up with everyone. I want to believe that that’s why you took me to the park, clicked pictures and calmly taught me some words of our language.
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Sometimes when I drift back into these stories and past memories as I glance over my gallery, I regret not transferring these pictures in my phone since those were our only photos together.
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Whether you would been alive or not, or could things have been clearer before the plunge of a death threat, I think things wouldn’t have changed a lot. And perhaps all my attempts at remembering you are only to clear a guilt which I have accused myself of. There is nothing that could have been done, the situations were such that maybe we didn’t want to understand each other’s stories and lives. And maybe that is what drifted us apart, our lack of communication and our failure of giving each other chances of some sorts.
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And yet when time came, all of us with whom you had ever engaged in a talk, came forward to pray for your reincarnated soul. We felt relieved at the news that you were said to be born in a good family somewhere in the hills, which coincidently remained as your last wish too. 

Your loving niece, Anna.
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. -@artalogues