Passages

Sunset falling on Masungi Georeserve, November 2024.

It has been a strange few months of farewells and passages. In a span of less than a year, we have bid goodbye to six close family members, three on my side and three on my husband’s. It seems that we barely had time to grieve one, when the news of another one’s passing arrived. It is a strange, unsettling feeling – you realize the unique space they occupied, the impact of their life force and energy, how their very existence shaped yours and the way you moved in the world – they are the landmarks in the atlas of your being, touchstones to whom you could always return. For we map out the world not only by the places we have been or dream of going to, but by the people we love who are there.

And then suddenly, they are gone. The atlas must be reconfigured and new territory must be explored. We move from physical to spiritual communion, from the tangible to the realm of memory, from presence to essence. What will guide us as we navigate this new frontier, what will help us when we are clumsy and forgetful, when we are weak and grieving?

It must be the greatest of all compasses. Love. Always love.

But surely, there will be moments in this journey when I will find you. Surely, I will see you in the mischievous twinkle of your grandson’s eye. Surely I will hear your deep timbre in your sibling’s laughter and in the song that we sing every year during Christmas.  Surely I will find you in your daughter’s gentle and beautiful mien and in your son’s shy and quiet humor. Surely I will feel you in your son’s eloquent speeches, with the deep lessons and well set-up jokes. Surely there will be jolts and flashes, when the veil that separates us is lifted and it will be that you are right there with us.

May these moments be plenty and may love fill every space where memory and strength fail. Till we meet again.