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Life Flows


It is a sad day. My uncle passed away in a remote village in Tamil Nadu. Only a week ago I had talked to him since I heard that he was diagnosed with cancer. We talked for over 20 minutes and I promised to call him back after the biopsy results were available. He returned home from Madurai- the doctors had given him only a few months but he did not last more than a couple of days. Minutes before he breathed his last he exclaimed to his wife that ‘Yogam Mani’ ( my late mother) was present in the room. My mother loved him a lot and she was there to escort him away from the pain and suffering of a bodily existence.

He leaves behind a shattered and devastated family- wife , 2 boys and a girl. The girl and the eldest son are blind from birth. My uncle was the sole breadwinner for so many years and suffered the agony of watching the two visually challenged children grow into adults. They needed him for everything- to be led to the bathroom, to be fed and dressed and groomed, to go out to bring the groceries.. They won’t even know that he is gone. Who knows what destiny has in store for these unfortunate children

Life presents itself in many wonderful ways. As Wayne says “Death is not the end of life, rather, birth and death are a part of life” . The beautiful red hibiscus bloom at my home that I marveled at today morning and the pictures of his new born that a colleague sent me by email are as much a display of Life’s unembellished presentation as a death of a loved uncle
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