It had been snowing for the past few days, but today the sky was strangely metallic grey, it was stingingly cold, and from one side of the horizon to the other you could only see the sun surrounded by the fog. I marvelled as other people streamed past, unimpressed.
If I was a guide, then I would tell you that you must be on foot, with chilled hands thrust into your pockets, scarf wrapped round your throat, and thoughts of a hot café crème in your imagination to enjoy the instant. It made the difference between simply being present and being there. But a single kite which was helplessly trying to join the sun, thrown me back to warm enough sweet memories of my grandparents, especially my grandpa, my nana. We used to go on the roof of his house in Lucknow and fly kites/patangs during countless hours.
He had the capacity to speak for hours, in the flawless syntactical sentences of matters about which he knew nothing at all. But it was enough to amaze the naïve kid I was. He used to compare kites to angels and wanted me to always remember that angels fly because they take themselves lightly. He knew how to make me feel special. That’s maybe why he loved so much my grandma, my nani.
She learned to fell in love everyday through a husband always teasing her nicely. They were a funny couple, he will always tease her and she will never reply or barely try to fight back, just a simple smile would have meant the world for him.
One day he sat behind her, bringing up things they might have forgotten. He was slipping easily into sarcasm. She was mute in the face of that sarcasm. He was sad in the face of her silence. They were both unhappy. He was unhappy that she was being short with him, and she was unhappy because he was the only one left, and these were her last years of life, and he didn’t want to ruin them by not being the person she deserves. Then she laughed and pulled him into her bosom despite his protestations. In her vice grip, pressed against her chest, she shook him from side to side and cooed at him “I love you”, she said. His buffooneries would have probably given her entertainment in those dull days of slow death. But few days later, she died. Her death had been a real grief to his warm heart, and he wept like a child.
You don’t get to choose how you are going to die or when. You can only decide how you are going to live now. They lived happily. But after her death, he wasn’t able to remember anyone, except from few of his sons and daughters, but not his grandsons anymore. Alzheimer? Not a mere German. After a year of her absence, he also died. I feel like if he wanted to tell me something before dying he would have told me that certes, j'ai eu les inconvénients de mes avantages, mais aujourd'hui tu as les avantages de mes inconvénients, and I would have smile and let him go. But Richard Bach will certainly tell him that allow to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose.
We, their grandsons are now the gatekeeper of their memory, of their joy, of their colourful life, of their life lessons… of how they taught me that family is the most important thing. That anyone who loves you has your back and is right there with you when things get real is family, and these are the people you have to take care of. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your family is always going to be blood, human bonds are stronger than biology. Finally, me, myself and I agreed that the one I was expecting to understand this bond, she would never be able to understand it.
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