One Amazing Thing

"I screwed up my life big-time, a lot of ways. Did a lot of stupid stuff. But at least I saw one amazing thing."

------One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni


2013 was a blow. It was a year that filled our lives with much sorrow. It was a time of emotional ups and downs. Two deaths in the family and a birth. My father-in-law's sudden death was followed by an unexpected calamity - the departure of my only brother. I was expecting my second child, my daughter, whose arrival I could not in any way celebrate. I became cold in many ways. I started forgetting people's birthdays, something I had been very particular about since I always liked to wish them on their special days. I would hate when someone remembered mine, because all it reminded me was the last surprise celebration my brother had planned for me. I stopped praying. It seemed futile to sit with folded hands and eyes closed when there was no one out there to listen. I looked around and saw death, loss, grief, pain everywhere. I wasn't the only one to suffer. I would look at a solitary cloud floating in the sky and that would take my back to my brother. It was as if he was in it, flying freely while I stood on the ground searching for him, in vain. When on the road, I would be lost in the deep woods that bordered NJ freeways. They would beckon my spirit silently and I seemed to follow, hoping that he was there, calling me, waiting to talk to me.

But he was not there. He could not be.

I had to come back, empty-handed, always.

Life was utterly hopeless.

I had to find a way out. But I did not know how.

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Then one day, a close friend of mine called me. She was feeling very low. I tried to cheer her up on the phone, Later I wrote something for her. It was my first blog post - For You, My Dear Friend. It was from here that I named my Blog, When I Stopped to Smell a Rose. I did not know what would happen next. It wasn't as if all my agony had swept away. No, I still felt that void. I don't really thing it can be filled in any ways. But it did touch my core in an inexplicable way. My heart ached to write.

I had started on a journey almost unawares. I was clueless as to where it would lead me. But I was willing to be led. Some unheard voice guided me along. Some unseen hand nudged me gently and I started walking.

It was later that I realized a strange thing. I had posted my first poem, my first writing on my grandmother's birthday - October 15.  It was a strange feeling, an astonishing realization, a sign I willingly acknowledged as a blessing. It was an amazing thing to see that tiny speck of light amidst the bleakest, gloomiest part of my life.

I remembered all the birthdays I had celebrated with her, the cards I had made for everyone special to me, the happy moments that had given me so much precious memories to hold on to. Do you think I cried then? No, I cleansed myself of the heaviness of the sorrow that was crushing me.

I got up, and I decided to walk around, with others, to lighten them up, to cheer them up.
To smile.
To make them smile.

Through the foggy blindness of my pain, through the blurry denseness of others' misery, a hope sprung inside. And I decided to write.

I have continued. Somehow, despite occasional setbacks, I have continued. What started on October 15, 2014, has completed two years.

My blog has survived.
My hopes have survived.

The lone distant cloud still fills my heart with yearning and the deep woods still intrigue me.
But something stays put. Something holds me together. The healing continues.

All I need to do now is to extend a Big Thanks to all of you, my family, my friends, my fellow bloggers, who have tolerated me despite my irregularity.

I never thought I would be here. But who can, really, even if one plans. Do we ever have any absolute knowledge of even one moment of future. No, I don't think so.

But then, if we had the knowledge, would it be easy? The answer is again NO.

As I end the post, I want to share one more thing.
Last night, we dined outside. It would have been just like any other moment of eating outside but for one thing. Our table was next to a family who was celebrating an occasion. It was a very special one. The eldest member of their family, their mother-in-law, had turned 90! It was amazing to be part of this celebration although we were not part of the family. As we extended our wishes to the birthday girl, my heart was filled with amazement. I felt after a long time that birthdays are special!



Linking to Sanch Vee 's #FridayReflections  prompt

Did you think you’d be doing what you’re currently doing in life? Write a personal essay.

Forgivess is a Choice - Difficult But Worthy....

In The Book of Forgiving, the author Desmond Tutu asks the reader to hold a stone big enough to fit your palm for six hours. It is to be held in the non-dominant hand for the allotted time while the reader does the work he usually does at that time. The author then asks us to note down a few things in a journal. Things like what one felt while holding the stone, whether certain actions were difficult to perform while holding the stone and whether the stone became one with the 'unforgiven hurt' that one carried in his heart.

I did not actually perform the said exercise but imagined myself holding it and facing difficulty in performing the daily activities I am wont to. I realized at once how crippling an effect it had on my mind. I could think of nothing else but the stone. I could not perform even in my imagination, a single act.

And that was the point the author was trying to make in his book too. When we hold on to our hurts, and our grudges, we are disabled. We are paralyzed. We are contained in a prison, so to say. 

Forgiveness is not easy to come by. Yes, Jesus is an epitome of forgiveness. In history, we have the supreme example of Mandela forgiving the wrongs done to him and his nation. But to be able to forgive, or to seek forgiveness requires tons of strength - mental strength. To be able to let go of the humiliation, and the pain one or one's loved one has been through is no mean task. 

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Desmond Tutu explains in his book that to be able to forgive, one has to live through the pain by articulating it, by accepting it. For not doing that can never lead to the path of liberation. True freedom from grudges can only come when one has accepted the hurt given or suffered. 

In everyday life, every single human being feels hurt when trust is broken, when expectations are  not met, or when some injustice befalls him or on the people he cares for. Friendships die, relationships loose their warmth. If we had the courage to speak up what hurt us the most, if instead of trying to brush a person aside from our life, we were able to confront that person, then forgiveness would be everywhere. But we don't do that. Not all of us are able to do that. We are trapped in our self-made prison of bruises. But letting that person go from our life never lets that person out of our mind. And therein lies the pain that we repeatedly inflict upon ourselves, reliving the moment of injustice again and again. It is not easy to forgive, for we have our egos to satisfy. We fail to see from any perspective other than our own. And we do not forgive.

But if we do, we leave behind us the agony and the torment of injustice. We refuse to become puppets of vengeance. If we seek forgiveness, which is a gargantuan task, we let go of our egos. We enfeeble our demonic thoughts of narcissism. We exhaust the beasts of hatred and revenge. We refuse to enter the vicious circle of blows and counterblows. We nip them in the bud.

The way we respond, the way we react decides what happens to us. 

In Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Palace of Illusions, the protagonist Draupadi is besieged by thoughts like these when she witnesses the devastation around her. She has been the one to bring it all about, she realizes. But who wins. Does the one who win the war emerge truly victorious? As she watches in horror the way warriors on both sides fall, she understands, a bit too late that "the chariot of vengeance" requires "no horses or wheels". It feeds only on hatred, and ego.

Choices and responses define us. Forgiveness is a choice we all have, whether we are seeking it or granting it. And although it is a difficult choice, it is all that takes to make life worthwhile.

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Written for IndiSpire 124