When my grandfather died in February 2002, it was the closest experience to death that I had had until then. I had seen many people die, some of them I had known well and some had been close but nobody until then had been as close to me as my grandfather.
In the days of mourning after his death, the whole family sat together and we talked about him. Everybody had many memories to share, some funny, some making us painfully aware that he would not be there anymore in future to share those stories with us.
My brothers, my sister, my parents, everyone had something to tell and I also went back in time in my mind, remembering what I had experienced with him.
As my grandparents lived further away, he was the one to whom I could write letters. He always wrote back and I was always very excited to get mail from him. Whenever they could, they came to visit us in Vrindavan and we also sometimes went to visit them in their town.
Before he retired in 1980, my grandfather had been working at the secret service. Due to his profession he knew a lot of stories and as children we always used to ask him to tell us some real criminal stories. He had so many of them that we never got tired of listening to him and the most exciting thing was that these stories were real! Whatever our friends could tell us was only fiction, from books or made up. When he told us a story, we imagined him to be the hero, going through those dangers himself.
When I once was there to visit my grandparents, my grandfather took me along to his office and showed me his workplace. There was a typewriter and I was allowed to type my name on paper and take that paper with me.
Another time he took me along to an airport where he had some work related with the security there. He took me along and with him I entered a plane for the first time in my life. Of course we did not fly but it was amazing for me, at maybe seven or eight years, to see the inside of a plane!
Some years before that, in 1975, my younger brother Purnendu had a problem with his leg. He was still a baby, I myself was only 4 years old, and my parents went with him to Bombay to get medical help there. They went to hospital and I had come along, as had my grandparents. My parents had the baby to take care of and were going to stay in Bombay but I was supposed to go with my grandparents to their town and stay there with them until my parents would be back in Vrindavan. I remember the hospital and being in Bombay and I did not want to leave my parents and baby brother there. My grandfather however made a promise. He told me, if I came with him, he would show me a real cat. It was only with this promise that I agreed on coming with him and we went by train from Bombay to his home. I don’t really remember seeing a cat there then, but as there were always many cats in their town, I am sure he kept his promise. What remained as a memory in my mind is the excitement that I had when he told me he would show me a cat.
With much love I told those stories and stored the memories in my mind.
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It is great to share such memories. Thinking back of my own grandparents, I remember my grandmother’s care when she was working in the garden and invited me to help or also my grandfather’s hearty laugh when we played games and I tried to cheat him. It is beautiful to remember someone beloved in this way.
Beautiful memories. I, too, have done this for my grandfather. After his death I wrote down every single piece of experience I had with him, starting with a description of his person and ending with my personal experience at his deathbed. Memories of the beloved person are with you always.
Beautiful story.:) Happy you have so much wonderful memories and that’s how our love ones stay with us ..in memories and sharing those 🙂 LOVE !
It must be nice to dissapear in his own memories and to escape the whirling world for one moment. I think when somebody dies, whom you really loved, it’s important to create ways of managing the situation and the pain. Memories can help us to let the person and our pain go.