What a touching, beautiful tribute.
"For some among my nieces and nephews, my mother’s death marks their
first real encounter with life’s greatest mystery. Someone they loved
has been taken away; they now begin the transformative engagement with
the knowledge of death that both marks human beings off from the animal
kingdom and forces us onto the spiritual journeys that will define and
shape our lives."
"My siblings and I are immigrants in a new and forbidding land. We
have been swept from the balmy seas and friendly isles that nurtured us
into a windswept, harder place. Several friends who have been lived in
this land much longer than I have, and have traced its contours and
learned to survive here tell me that while this cold new island will
support life, the world without your mother will never be the same."
"Myself, I am too new to this world to grasp what I see. Deep grief
seems like a monsoon; the rains sweep in and flood the streets and
fields, let up for a few hours, and sweep back in again. There are
moments when I break into helpless weeping; there are moments when I
feel the presence of her love; there are moments when the flow of
ordinary life takes over until I remember what has happened with a
shock."
May she rest in peace. She sounds like a wonderful mother, woman and human being. Lovely.
