Tag Archives: emotion

Grandma’s Suitcase

25 Tuesday Apr 2017

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My grandma loved to travel. I called her Ammamma, which literally translates to “Mom Mom” in English (this was fitting because she did have twice the Mom power). Ammamma went on her final trip this January. When I heard that she was packing up to leave, Mom and I flew over to India. We wanted to help her pack, but really we wanted to convince her to stay. We sat in the hospital waiting room every day for 7 days while she packed her things. She didn’t seem too sure about going at times; we would take turns going in to see her in the ER and convince her to stay. For a while we really thought she was going to listen to us. But in the end she had packed all her things and insisted on leaving. She left so she could finally see the rest of the Earth, but also to see whatever was beyond – this planet was probably too small for her travel bug.

Ammamma left us, but she left behind one red suitcase after all her packing. It was some sort of parting gift to me. I decided to open it: it was big, like the suitcases I would bring to India that were filled with Western chocolates for my cousins. When I opened it, it wasn’t stuffed with chocolate though. There was just a bunch of boxes, different sizes, shapes, and colors. As I peeked into some of the boxes, I realized each box had a message in it along with a vial, and each vial had colors swirling around in them, sort of like lava lamps or the potions in Harry Potter stories. Each one looked and swirled a little differently. I was confused but then I saw a note tucked away behind the top zipper inside of the suitcase. It was written on simple lined paper, like the kind Ammamma used to write God’s name a thousand times every day.

The note said the suitcase was full of her regrets, and I’d have to keep them now. They weren’t regrets of the past, she wrote, since she’s had a long and good life, and we’d spent enough time in each other’s company. No, these were future regrets. All the moments in my life she would regret to miss, since she had to leave for her trip. I would have to carry these future regrets until the right moment, she wrote, because they should never be opened early. The sadness would be too overwhelming if I did that.

Now that I understood, I decided to open the boxes one by one. The first colorful one on top of the others was labeled “Marriage”. I opened the ornate box and found a very decorated vial within. The future regret was swirling around with a bright orange color, dancing around the vial excitedly. I knew it shouldn’t open it yet, so I just loosened the cap a little, just enough to hear the faint noise of wedding trumpets and dancing inside, the smell of food and friends and tears of joy. I tightened up the lid again and read the accompanying note. Ammamma wrote that she would regret not being able to bless me at my wedding, to look my wife up and down and smile with approval. After 63 years together with her husband, she said she could’ve given me a lot of good advice. I put the note and vial away and took out the next box, labeled “Children”.

The second box had a vial with light, airy swirls of pink and blue that seemed to be playing with each other. When I loosened the top a bit, it sounded like innocent laughter and even more innocent tears; it smelled like sleepless nights and baby food and family. Ammamma wrote that she would regret not being able to hold my children in her lap and make silly faces at them. She said she would’ve liked to be there to tell my Mom to relax, to teach her how to be as good a grandma as she was. That last bit of cockiness made me giggle. I put this box away too, and reached for the one labeled “Success”.

This vial was bigger than the other ones, it had separate compartments but all of the regrets were swirling around in a bright blue cloud, speckled with white and gold. It looked like a dream and I could’ve stared at it for days. When I finally opened it just slightly, I heard the sounds of applause, I heard my name being called by announcers at microphones. I smelled the aroma of books, and the intoxication of education and wealth and power. Ammamma wrote that she would regret not being able to clap for me at my PhD graduation, or see the dedication page of my first book with her name on it. She would’ve told her friends about me with pride, she said, would’ve shown them my Wikipedia page. She wished she could’ve been there to comfort me when the first attempt didn’t work out, because she had the faith to know nothing would stop me. She warned me to act on my dreams too, instead of just dreaming about them. With that warning, I finished the note and took one last look at the beautiful blue swirls before putting away the vial and box. With three boxes out of the suitcase, I could tell the next one took up a lot of space – it looked like a heavy regret. I heaved out the box labeled “Growth”.

This vial was even bigger than Success, as big as a basketball, but not as pretty. The regret was swirling around in one thick yellow wave, slowly undulating up and down for what seemed like forever. This one sounded like a regular day, with voices and traffic and arguments and laughter. It smelled like suburbia and trees, and the changing of the seasons. Ammamma wrote that this vial was an exception to the rule. This vial was so big because I’d have to let it out drop-by-drop over the course of a lifetime instead of waiting for specific moments. This regret, she wrote, was for all the regular moments she would never see, all the mistakes I was going to learn from, and the wounds she could no longer kiss. This vial was because she wished so dearly that she could’ve seen me grow, slowly coming to terms with the passage of time like she had. It was because she wished she could continue to be a part of my life. Ammamma left directions: I’d have to open this every now and then, but just a careful drop, because it would be make me sad. Sad to remember her absence, the lack of her gleeful voice on the other end of our weekly phone calls to India. Every time I opened it, I would also need to open the vial she had packed underneath it she wrote. Impatiently, I put down her note and let out a bit of “Growth” before waiting.

Immediately, I saw memories of Ammamma cooking my favorite dishes, going walking with me in the evenings and proudly telling neighbors that I was her grandson. I remembered the way my Mom would lie in her lap and look absolutely vulnerable just because she could be a child again in that one place. I remembered the shouts between Ammamma and my grandpa that would be followed with laughter. And when I remembered all these things, I started to cry uncontrollably. I cried because I wished she was still there with me, just like the note warned me about. Squinting through teary eyes, I put away the vial and desperately reached for the last box, hoping for it to be a huge, but instead found the smallest box yet: “Love”.

When I took out the vial, it was effortlessly light and inside was a viscous swirl of red, but it didn’t look or move like the other regrets. It was perfectly still, constant in every sense. When I opened it slightly, it sounded like the laughter of old friends and the lullaby of a new mother. But it smelled even better, just like hugs from Ammamma. Ammamma wrote that this too was an exception, and it truly was not a regret at all. She said I could open it now and dump it all out, and it would just replenish itself over and over. I remembered her directions from the last box and decided to dump out the Love to cure my sadness, before I even finished reading the note. As it exited the vial, the Love ballooned and enveloped me immediately, I felt that I was floating and someone had wiped away my tears with a mother’s expertise. And then I smelled Ammamma’s hugs. I heard the sound of her voice shouting “Hellllooo Abhi” when I would arrive at her front door in Vijayawada. Then I closed my eyes and I saw it too, so vividly I saw the memory of her racing to hug me at the door when I arrived, telling me it’s been too long, and what will I eat, and why am I still so skinny? I could see her right in front of me, smiling up at me with 5’1” of pure affection, and we both just laughed at the feeling of holding each other again after so long.

Then, just as it started, the vision went away, then the sounds, then the smells. But that floating feeling lingered, and the smile was being so stubborn that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud again. I watched the Love replenish itself and since it was small I just packed it right in my pocket so I would always have it. I put all the other boxes back in the suitcase, just the way Ammamma had arranged them. Just before I zipped up the suitcase, I remembered that I hadn’t finished reading Ammamma’s note for Love, so I sat down to finish her words:

“I left you with so many future regrets because there is so much I wanted to experience with you. When you reach your milestones in life, when you’re married or write your first book, you’re going to feel my absence because of those regrets. But for every future regret I left you, remember that I also left all my love here for you. Consider this love my soul, understand that it is both endless and effortless, and will stay with you long after you’ve made your own final journey.

Love,

Ammamma”

Family

Grandma, Grandpa, and I during my Bieber hair days

Cracks in My Cell

02 Thursday Mar 2017

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“How are you doing?” people usually ask, whether or not they know I’ve lost family recently. I don’t answer these days. My external representative takes care of that – the face I put up for the world. He tells people “I’m doing alright”. The word choice is deliberate, it comes with a wild hope that someone will remember my usual answer of “I’m doing great!” and wonder what’s wrong. I need them to wonder because my true self isn’t able to speak out of this cell.

I’m in solitary confinement right now, my self sentenced here by Grief, who says I need to do time for losing my grandma. I tried to plead my case, I told Grief that it’s not what my grandma would want. I told Grief that I’m supposed to be strong right now for my mother’s sake, she has it a lot worse than I do. I told Grief that I have to be the positive one in the family. Don’t you get it? But Grief brought down his gavel devoid of justice and sentenced me to solitary. Loneliness and Doubt carried me with tied arms to my cell of hard grey stone – they opened the padlock door, threw me inside, and stood guard outside. I have a bed, a desk, two cloudy windows, a punching bag, a bathroom, and stone. Lots of grey, bleak, stone.

So I’ve been here for a while now, waiting for my release.

Some days are better than others. I write a lot at my desk since I’m alone; there aren’t as many distractions. There’s an elegance to the introspection. Some days, I work all day and at night my brain is tired and it just sleeps in peace. Other days though, when I go to sleep, the demons crawl out of the corners of the cell. They don’t say much but they show me things. Bad things. The way we waited every day in the hospital with dwindling hope, the sound of my family’s tears, the sight of my grandmother’s final moments. And always the absence of my grandma, they always show me that. It makes me toss and turn and not sleep. Something’s missing, I’m less loved than I was a few months ago. A rage boils within too. When I think about the hospital staff, the shouts of relatives at the chaotic funeral ceremony: rage. I go to my punching bag, I hit it hard. Thud. I’m not satisfied. Thud, thud, thud. Step, punch, step, hands up, jab, jab, rage. The bag just keeps coming back. One day I rage so deeply that I hit it straight out of its chains, just so I could feel like I had defeated something when everything else had me beaten.

There’s two small windows in my grey stone cell, on either side of the locked cell door. I look out for help every now and then on the right side window; I see friends. They’re… busy in their own lives. They’re working towards something important, or they’re a thousand miles away or, they just feel a thousand miles away. They can’t see me through the cell glass, and I don’t knock on the window – why aren’t I able to just knock? I go to the other window on the left side. I can see family in this one. I see a mother that’s lost her mother, a father who’s recently lost his brother, and another grandma who’s lost her son. They’re strong beyond belief, Grief couldn’t contain them to solitary like he did to me. They can’t see me through the cell glass, and I don’t knock on the window – how can I possibly ask these people for help when they’re dealing with so much more than I am? No, I usually walk away from the window instead. But the other day, just as I was walking away I see my Pop coming up to talk to my external representative as usual. My representative is supposed to handle this. He’s going to say that I’m alright but something falters, an error, a break in the system. There’s just tears and mumbling and Loneliness and Doubt step aside for once to let Pop into my cell for a visit.

He sits down with me on the bed and holds me gently on my back; I feel like I’m back on the playground swings and he’s going to push me and catch me. Under his comfort the floodgates are open: the demons came straight out of me this time. Pop, I don’t remember how to hope anymore. How do all these people have so much faith in the afterlife? Why isn’t anyone there for us? Do people really care about me? He senses the depth of the problem and he holds me a little tighter. Suddenly, we’re not in my grey prison anymore, we’re sitting on a park bench in the Dallas winter. The wind nips at my ears and gives a slant to the waterfall springing from my eyes.

My Pop speaks.

Son, there’s no proof I can give you that faith is rewarded in the afterlife. I just know we live a better life when we believe something.

There’s no explanation for why your hope for grandma wasn’t rewarded. I just know that we only get up each day because we continue to have hope.

There’s no way to tell you who truly cares about you and when. I just know you can never blame people, you can only set an example.

He pauses.

We’re transported back into my cell, sitting on the bed, but it doesn’t feel as bleak anymore. His words were churning in my head, then they went down and stopped my tears in their tracks, and continued down until they warmed my heart and made me feel full and gave strength to my legs and feeling to my feet. Then, he pulled something out of his pocket. He gave me an unbreakable nail; it was Faith. Out of the other pocket he pulled an iron hammer; it was Hope.

Pop said: When you’re ready. Your family will be there waiting to love you.

And then he got up, turned around, and walked out of the door. Loneliness and Doubt closed it again when he left. Then I got up, turned around and walked towards the other end of the grey stone wall. I put Faith up to the stone, I searched for a good spot and held it firm in place. I raised my Hope high, I felt my fingers grip the handle with purpose, and I struck hard.

Nothing.

I set Faith again, I raised my Hope and I struck even harder.

Crack. The wall was giving way. I struck and I struck and piece by piece the stone crumbled at my feet and I felt the stir of determination again. I pounded away, Hope and Faith becoming used to me and I to them again. When I was done I looked and saw a hole in the wall, the size of my face. The light of the colors that I missed danced through the gap in the grey stone into my cell, they painted the wall with small glimpses of Happiness: bright blues and fiery reds and playful yellows and greens. Content, and exhausted, I settled onto my bed, kept Faith and Hope under my pillow, and watched the colors dance as I went to sleep.

I’ve been here a while now, but I’m no longer waiting for my release. I’m going to break out soon enough.

Pesky Memories

13 Friday Jan 2017

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Do you ever have pesky memories? You know the ones I’m talking about.

The memories you try to keep in the maximum security prisons of your mind. The ones that come from experiences you don’t want to think about. Sometimes they slip past the guards, climb walls, dig tunnels, and get out right? Pesky memories – they’re annoying because they’re always trying to escape when your guard is down, when just for a second your mind wanders, it looks the other way. They slip out in the vulnerable moments: when you’re on a long drive through the countryside, or lying awake at night trying to fall asleep, or hugging someone for the 1,000th time who makes you feel safe. I get them when I’m on planes, when I’m left with nothing but music in my headphones and thoughts in my head. I can feel the locks turning in my mental prisons when we take off, the searchlight turning off in the prison yard, the excitement of all the escaped thoughts who want to run free. By the time we reach cruising altitude, my eyes are closed and the memories are wreaking havoc.

Maybe your pesky memories are like mine?

Maybe you remember the ones you’ve lost that left a mark on you. Do you think about having a cup of tea on the roof with your uncle, watching the sun set over grazing buffalo while he recounts his shipyard days? When I stand on my balcony now with chai, the memories make me wish he was still there to tell me stories. Surely, you think about playing video games and eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos with your best friend, the one that was taken too early? I remember him when I watch a movie that he would like, when someone mispronounces my name in some way that would’ve made him laugh. Or,

Maybe you remember the land you left behind when you immigrated. Do you think about those moments at the train station, when you roll away from the longing faces who wonder when you’ll be back? They come to mind at the end of every Indian meal, every road with too much honking. You at least remember the nights spent next to your grandparents right, talking about their hopes and dreams for you? I think about those in the quiet moments after a shower when I wonder whether I’m a good person. Or,

Maybe you remember the relationships you left behind. Do you think about the first awkward kiss you had on campus? What about driving away from someone you love, struggling to see the steering wheel through your tears? Some nights when the apartment feels particularly lonely, and I’m staring at the microwave heat something, those memories get out. They always require 15 minutes of wrestling back into their prison cells so they don’t become overwhelming. 15 minutes of telling myself that things happen for a reason. Some memories don’t deserve the light of day. Or,

Maybe you remember all the instances of unrequited love. Do you remember when someone told you they couldn’t love you, but you couldn’t get the damn possibility out of your head? I bet it comes to mind when you hug that person a second too long or listen to just the right Ed Sheeran song. You probably have the pesky memories of all the times you could’ve told someone the way you felt? Maybe even after you said something it didn’t work out anyway. So then there’s just a lot of what ifs swirling around in your head along with the memories. And what ifs are tricky, because they’re hopeful and colorful and seemingly innocent but trust me they belong in your mental prisons too. Or,

Maybe you remember the times you could’ve been better. Do you think about the words you said that caused pain? I guess you wonder why you never called back that friend, the one you loved getting fro-yo with. I think about those words when I lay in the grass with my best friend and look at the clouds. I get those memories when I’m scrolling through my phonebook wondering why I haven’t talked to all these people in so long. Well,

Hopefully when you think about all of that, you realize those pesky memories were born from the moments that made you, like they made me. You know, it’s those moments that built your character, taught you to be better, love more openly, and thank more often. But the memories of those moments don’t allow you peace of mind. The memories are still of mistakes, lapses, sadness, and they belong in the prisons of your mind. It just takes an occasional prison break to remind you why those thoughts deserved a cell in the first place.

So, do you ever have pesky memories? You know the ones I’m talking about.