When my son--he was my eldest--passed away, our family--my husband and I and our 3 children, with their families--were in Goa for a family holiday as my younger son had come for a visit from the US.  So we were all together.  My younger son had not visited India for 3 years.
My eldest fell ill on the last day of our holiday and passed away 4 days later.
The day he passed away, we had to move out of the hospital, where we had been camping and we were all given place to stay in a company guest house, through some kind friends.  The place was very near a quiet beach.  That night, we all of us walked down to the beach--a deserted beach, away from the tourist spots.  It was a dark, moonless night and all the stars were very bright.  There seemed to be just us on the beach.  And then away near the horizon, in a sky full of stars, I saw a shooting star, it's trajectory towards the horizon and I thought, that's him, that's my son.  He streaked across life, our lives and the life of so many others, like that.  The memory of that shooting star is very clear in my mind.
                        We are such stuff
                        As dreams are made of
                        And our little life
                        Is rounded with a sleep
                                                W. Shakespeare

I am happy to share that one of the things he was working on, on the Indian side, came to fruition recently --a treaty for the visually impaired

The two month summer vacation is over.  It was a fairly busy two months.  My grandson, who is almost 8, came to stay as soon as his summer vacation started.  He was here for almost a month.  He was joined by his little sister--31/2--for about a week.  So April was taken care of that way.  In May, we went over to Chennai for around 10 days.  My husband and I drove there, something I always love to do, taking it easy, with an overnight break both on our journey there and back.  Hence we spent some more time with the grandchildren, daughter and daughter-in-law in Chennai.
When we got back I found my Lab Elsa was pregnant (mate unknown!!).  My daughter and family came back again towards the end of May, during which time Elsa whelped--which was truly momentous, leaving us all exhausted and drained.  But after all her agony and effort, there is only one pup surviving, though she gave birth to 8. (Full story of my being midwife here)
Now that schools have opened, I am back to work.  The monsoons seem to have started in earnest and so it is much, much cooler.  By next week the regular routine will be very much in place, a return to 'normal' life, something which seemed to have disappeared sometime in January.
And life goes on..........

When my parents passed away, I did not feel like this, because I knew that both of them, my mother particularly, as she talked about it with me often, were ready to go and because I knew they had both lived full lives, and, most importantly, felt themselves that they had lived full lives.

At the moment I behave on the surface as though everything is normal.  But there are days when I feel I just cannot give of myself, that I have nothing to give, I am unable to be the strong one and give a shoulder for someone to lean on;  days when I do not want to see anyone except immediate family.  It is truly true (probably why it's a saying/cliche) 'laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone'.  Many people are uncomfortable with another's sorrow.  I have been guilty of that too at some time.  So one tries hard to be natural and as normal as can be in the interest of the people around you.  But some days it is difficult.  

My last few posts have been about missing my son.  But I want to add that life goes on.  My grandson was here for a few days and brought a great deal of life into the house.  Then too, even without him having been there, the mundane, the nitty-gritty of life goes on and thoughts of my children and their families are, passing thoughts in my mind, as they were at the beginning of this year, and then, the thought comes that my eldest son is no more and it's unreal.
I am told that around here, most people feel that I have handled/am handling our tragedy well, but that it is my husband who is most upset.  Ah well!  I am too used to being the shoulder that is cried on to be easily able to reverse that role.  I have fixed a rather large plaster over the wound, made out of reading favourite books and listening to Jazz, mostly Latin jazz, music I love, (which has no associations with my son) and I am way too scared to even think about looking under the plaster, because I am so sure the scab will come away with the plaster too.

I was looking back over my blog posts and I found this post I had posted about my eldest son and now, one year later he is no more. It is so unbelievable.  I had been so happy for him, at where he was in his life, the past year especially, and how happy he was and how mellowed he had become; how proud he was of what he was doing, how he had come to terms with his disability.  When he and his wife drove away from here, his childhood home, on the first of Jan, who thought that it would be the last time ever he would be doing that trip.  He had had so many things planned for this year, all not to be.
I read an online article about death--that there is no real death, that the energy that makes up a person just moves into an alternate universe.  Whatever death is, wherever the soul/the essence of a person goes after dying, for his/her loved ones, the fact is they are no longer where we are.  I can no longer touch his springy hair, give him a hug, see the brilliantly coloured tattoo on his arm, watch his lovely long fingers play the guitar, hear him belting out songs old and new, hear his ''So how are things, what's up at home?'' regularly once a week on the phone, mostly calling to talk to his father.  He was the one all the younger cousins went to, to solve problems, to get answers to stuff, to just talk and laugh with too.  The 'why,why whys' still come up in my mind.  But of course, there are no answers.  We just have to accept and deal with the reality of his physical absence.

Life moves slowly on.  It's almost two months since my son passed on.  In the day, when I'm reading or pottering about the house, when my eyes are wide open, it's ok; but in the dark sometimes the memories come, like a video and then it's difficult.
Well, my grandson is coming to spend part of his summer holidays (as large a part of it that he can).  We'll go fetch him this week, as his holidays begin on the 5th.  I know he is looking forward to it with great excitement and grandpa is busy recording movies for both of them to watch together, apart from planning possible trips out of town with him :-)
His sister has agreed--for the very first time--to come and spend a few days with us, without her parents, towards the end of the month, mainly because her mum (my daughter) has to go out of town.  She has promised her mother that she will be alright.  Once she also comes, I'm sure I'll be too busy to while away time in front of Facebook etc!

"I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was 
I can't understand, no, I can't understand
How life goes on the way it does 

Why does my heart go on beating
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye"

This was the way I was feeling for the last month or so.  But I have managed to put in exercise,

gone back to work teaching, reading books I love--fantasies, westerns, or James Herriot, Gerald Durrell--which keep my mind occupied and away from thinking of my loss.  Now that summer holidays have begun, very soon my grandkids will be coming for their holidays.

But, every time I see pictures of my son, see something he used lying around and most of all, inadvertently hear music that he loved and sang, the sorrow floods me.  Yet, I do see the slow healing of time taking place.  Incidentally, I also found this site very helpful.