Naniji facing the biggest Pain: the Loss of her Daughter

There are three people who, I think, suffer most from the sudden passing of Ammaji: Babbaji, Naniji and Apra. I yesterday wrote already about Babbaji, who lost his wife and the love of his life. For Naniji, the passing of Ammaji means that her only daughter died. When we came back from the hospital and carried Ammaji’s body in, she was simply devastated.

Naniji, and actually all of us, expected her, the oldest member of the Ashram, to be the next one to leave. She has been waiting for that day ever since her husband left his body in 2002. That was the first time I heard her say that it was time for her to go, too. It should not be, though. In 2006, my sister died, her only granddaughter. And now, in 2012, her daughter died in front of her, too. It goes without saying that she is terribly sad, asking again and again why it was not her who died past Monday.

It is true, and I say this honestly without hesitation, that we all would have been prepared for her passing away. She is old, has lived a long life, has seen her grandchildren grow up and has even played a lot with her great-granddaughter. We were joking a lot about it with her. Whenever we left for a journey, we told her not to die until we would be back and when we came back, we told her how good it was she had not died yet. She herself joined our jokes, asking me whether I had not made her ticket for leaving. We all and she herself were mentally prepared that she would be the next one. But she wasn’t.

Naniji sat next to Ammaji’s body for hours in a mourning wake, crying, calling her to say something, to come back, to just wake up, in complete disbelief that this has happened. Kusum, the name that she had given her, came again and again from her lips in endless grief.

Naniji had spent most of her day together with Ammaji. In the morning she joined her in her room or outside, picking coriander, cracking nuts or cutting and peeling vegetables. They sat together on the swing in our hall, watching what was going on, who was coming and who was going. In the afternoon they drank their chai together and in a loving relation of mother and daughter urged each other to eat properly. They ate together and shared their time, talking about everything that happened here. Now this all is over.

I know however that my grandmother is a very strong person and we can all see it once more in these days. She had given all responsibility in the hands of her daughter, prepared everyone for her death and passed on whatever knowledge was necessary for those after her. Now that Ammaji is no more, she is of course terribly sad but also determined to take her part of what we are distributing and sharing among each other these days. She plays with Apra at times when it was her and Ammaji who looked after her. She has an eye open for all the small things that happen in the Ashram and which Ammaji used to supervise. And we asked her to teach us all the things that she had taught my mother and which will be forever lost once she will leave if we cannot learn it from her – how to make the garam masala we use in every meal, the herbal salt that we all love so much, the pickles which we wouldn’t want to miss in our meals.

We told Naniji under tears that she has to stay some time longer now, so that our little Apra can at least have her great-grandmother around, if not her grandmother. We hope she will be with us for long, even though the loss of her daughter has left a deep hole in her life.