Ravi - 48

It’s been almost one year since my father passed, to be exact 325 days as I sit down to write this story.  Time has a way of applying balm to even the deepest wounds; yet I still find it hard to believe that he is gone.  I can’t bring myself to see a photo of him without wincing inside, the way you might wince when kicked in the stomach.  My father was 95 years old when he died and despite his increasing and debilitating dementia, he was a healthy, vibrant, brilliant, and beautiful man. I miss him more than I can even admit. 

In the weeks before my father passed, my sister was having a conversation with a palliative nurse and asked her what the greatest thing was that she had learned from her experiences with those who were transitioning… she simply and profoundly answered “You die as you have lived.”  Think about that for a moment: “You die as you have lived.”  That may not ring true for everyone, but I cannot think of a more fitting way to describe my father’s life and the process by which he chose to leave this world.  More on that later…  

You see, I could use this space to share a biography of his life, born in India, moving to Canada, having kids, working at the Jasper Park Lodge for 25 years, retiring and then moving to BC, and these details could fill pages of a long and sorted book. But the truth is, my father was an insatiably private man and yet at the same time talked about everything under the sun to me regarding the world outside of him, but rarely about the world that lived inside of him.  What I openly admit to all of you with overwhelming sadness is that I didn’t really know the true essence of my father until he was dying.  

There were many moments in my life where my father gave me a glimpse of that inner world, but he never displayed it openly or even knowingly to me.  For example, when I was young we lived in a townhouse, where my parents room was separated from my room by three steps and at 5am daily my father would be in the middle of that stairwell practicing yoga in an way that seemed so unorthodox to me – he would breath only through one nostril, pull his stomach to the back of his spine and contort his body in the most flexible positions imaginable.  He didn’t know that I was awake, but I remember observing him collectively for hours during my childhood and yet never asking him why he was doing what he was doing or how it made him feel.  Over the past several years, I would visit my parents’ home generally on a weekly basis and walk inside and ask my mom where my dad was, and she would answer reverently– “he is praying in his room.”  I would peek inside without disturbing him and he would always be sitting at the edge of his bed, hands folded in prayer position, with his eyes closed, chanting in a barely audible whisper.  I don’t know what he was saying but he would emerge two hours later.  I remember always getting a little annoyed that I would come over to visit and yet dad was always in his room… but that was my father.  He had the kind of conviction to his inner world and his practice of faith that is truly remarkable to me.  

As I share these memories with you, some might be thinking that he was kind of saintly, but that’s not true, at least in his own mind. My father was a man that asked for deep forgiveness before he passed and that will remain between him and God as it will for all of us.

So, I want to take you back to the passage that so eloquently describes the intimacy of my father’s inner world and his own preparation for death - “You die as you have lived…”

Two weeks before my father passed, we didn’t know that he was dying.  When his family doctor visited our home and proclaimed that dad was being placed on palliative watch, it hit us like a ton of bricks; my families entire world had just been shattered; but not my fathers.  Of course, like any of us, he was afraid of dying but for whatever reason I knew then that he would be in complete control of how and when it happened.

What would unfold over the next two weeks was paramount to an awakening for myself, I was finally being able to bear witness to my father’s inner process of deep faith and devotion to God.  No longer was it barely audible whispers but loud, repetitive chanting of Om Namah Shiva.  Om Namah Shiva’s English translation is as follows: "I bow to Supreme Consciousness, as the universal Divine resonance vibrates within my heart as Shakti, to that Consciousness who is my beloved teacher, I bow.” 

As days became hours and hours became minutes, my father would slip in and out of consciousness, and his visions were vivid depictions of his departed mother and brother, unknown figures that seemed to represent darkness; and of course his glimpses of God.  My father would talk directly to God, and it always served to transmute his fears.  At times when he was awake, he would ask to be lifted up from his bed so he could sit in his wheelchair and be taken to see the roses in his Garden.  Even with his eyes shut and the sun gleaming upon them, you could sense my father’s connectedness to the beauty that he had created with his own hands.  Oh, how he loved his garden… 

I feel lost without him but heal a little inside by sharing a window of my father’s story with all of you. 

Music - Ravi’s music choices during our photo session included Latthe Di Chadar, Tracy Chapman, Sheila Chandra, and Krishna Das.