They say that when you lose some one dear, your whole life can replay itself in front of your eyes. That is exactly how the recent loss of my father has affected me. He led a life full of integrity, hard work, competence and influence and my memoirs are dedicated to him
Chapter-1 883 Circular Road.
I recently got back home from a poignant visit to India. A visit to what used to be home 35 years ago and what is now my parental and my brother’s home. It was on this home’s driveway, that my father had stood last December and had wished me a teary eyed bon voyage. At the time, he was turning 90 but still active and still working. About 6 weeks later he was gone. I travelled back albeit after all the last rites were over. Not only did I want to go experience my loss with the family but also wanted to go experience his absence in the space where he used to be.
My family here in Canada tries to help me move on but these days all I can do in my spare time is think of 883 Circular Road, Amritsar, our family home “Kitty Cottage” (named in loving memory of my sister Kitty who died at the tender age of 19)
This was the first home my father and mother owned together. Custom built to our family’s needs; it was neither an easy build nor an easy move for my parents. During the construction and the eventual move, they carried a huge emotional burden of my sister’s struggle with Ewing’s Sarcoma a form of a bone cancer. The one joy was that my older sister got to experience the new home. For a person with a terminal illness, she was full of life. She threw recovery parties on the terrace (as soon as she would feel better from chemo or radiation). She would have the house reverberating with music whenever she could. She enjoyed having fun loving visitors whenever her energy allowed for it.
As the illness took over, the energy started to seep. It was in this house that she took her last breath. She was moved to my parent’s room in the last few days of her life, and this is where my father had stood by her bedside and gently closed her eyes for the last time. I still remember his broken voice saying, “that is how long God meant the relationship to be, my child”. I had looked at him with beseeching eyes begging him to say it wasn’t true. Surely my mate of 17 years couldn’t have left just like that. He had held my hands firmly and said ‘It is the truth, and she is gone”
I had broken free of him and ran out of 883 Circular Road because I wanted to fight it all. I don’t think I knew what I was doing or where I was going but within minutes, loving and comforting neighbors and family showed me the way back into the house to face reality. Although there were no cell phones at the time, news had travelled fast. “Dr Hardas Singh had lost his first-born daughter and the house was getting full of people. My mother had completely broken down, my 15-year-old brother was roaming around lost sobbing that only three of us siblings were left. Our youngest, my 10-year-old brother was arriving back swollen eyed from Grandma’s house as that is where he had been sent in anticipation of the critical hours, we needed to face that afternoon.
All this while, my father, a man who did not express emotion well was busy instructing people to bring out white sheets, looking at formalities, trying to direct our close family and friends into responsibilities. He was trying to instill normalcy into what had to be one of the most painful chapters and moments of his life. Another irony to the situation. He was an Orthopaedic Surgeon and had lost his child to bone cancer. He was an active part of her care, as she battled the disease for 3 years. She always felt safe when he was around. He had lived the pain of knowing; day in and day out that no amount of expertise could save her life.
I learnt to appreciate his calm and matter of fact manner much later in life but that evening I just wanted to hide from his eyes. I remained dazed and in denial, praying that it would all turn out to be just a bad dream. My sister (still can’t call it just her body) lay still on the bed, very still but in every other way, her beautiful self. As customary in India, she remained at home till the next morning when she was dressed up and taken to the cremation grounds. I continued to remain in disbelief and even at my father’s beckoning did not accompany them to the funeral. They left me home with some dear friends. The family eventually returned without her.
Despite so many people being there, the house had suddenly turned empty on us. At some point that week, I had to accept that my sister was never coming back. I had lost my childhood playmate, my pre-teen roommate, and my teen peer forever. Through the sobbing and crying, family and friends wrapped us with love and care and the house saw comings and goings like never before, as if a reminder of life and that the living must go on. A cousin took time off school to come to stay with me for two weeks. An aunt and uncle disrupted their life and stayed with us processing things with my parents, taking us out for breaks. We as a family lost our laughter and luster for some time but it did not take long for 883 Circular Road to bounce back.
With my parent’s resilience, it would eventually become the joyful home where my parents presided over fun wedding festivities for all their remaining children and the birth of many of their grandchildren.
Next Chapter: My father; a disciplined man
