Letting Priya's Spirit Free

December 2019, Hyderabad, India - Priya, left, helping her little cousin Navya, right, celebrate her birthday.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve written and I’m not sure why. So much has changed for me in the past three months, but then again, so much hasn’t. It’s ironic that the last post I wrote about was that of the death of my dear mother-in-law almost 4 years gone. Because now as I write this, I am in India with my husband, helping my sister-in-law and her family with the loss of their daughter, Priya. My heart breaks all over again, this time, for a life that was lost too soon, for a family that will be profoundly altered for the rest of their respective lives over the loss of a daughter who held court, stole people’s hearts and minds and defied all odds to become a college-educated, employed, strong young woman despite her disabilities.

Even though we have dealt with the pandemic and cataclysmic changes in work, school and health and loss over these past two years as a society, still nothing prepares you for death. I think that’s what has caught me most off guard these past eleven days. That even though we’ve been surrounded by such loss of life and uncertainty and have had to become more flexible and nimble in our daily lives, that the permanence of death still can hit you so hard. Intellectually you know it’s always a possibility with anybody you hold dear, but in life, despite it all, your heart settles on hope and positivity. Even though there is so much bad going on in the world right now, the promise of life, of hope, of love carries you to the next moment. Until that next moment is one of death.

For the past two days, I’ve been sitting with my sister-in-law. Most times we don’t speak. I sit there in her pain. I cannot ever know the true depths of her despair and utter devastation. But I sit there, knowing that I have no ability to take any of it away from her. I listen to her tell stories of her Priya, of her suffering, her last days and minutes, and also of her triumphs, of her character and personality and of what she will miss. I worry that she will feel the despair of loneliness and we will be thousands of miles away, caught up in our daily lives to not be with her. To not sit with her. To not allow her to share her pain.

You can tell so much about a culture by how they care for those grieving. In my culture, there are 10-13 days of mourning. In those days, those who have lost their loved ones are not left alone and surrounded by family and friends. Each day there are ceremonies performed by a priest. The 10th day after death, which we observed yesterday for Priya, is perhaps the hardest day for those who believe in spirits and an afterlife. It is the day where we who are left behind must sever our ties with the spirit of the departed. We must let her go, let her spirt free, so the spirit can fulfill its destiny. With our clothes on, we purify ourselves with a cold water shower. We then perform a simple ceremony performed by the priest who instructs us how to cut our ties to Priya. We thank her for blessing our lives with her presence, for giving us so much of herself. And then in a moment, our bonds are cut forever. We then take another cold water shower, marking the end of our relationship with the deceased. For my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, the pain of that severance was almost too much to bear. The finality so cruel. As a mother and father, can you ever really detach from your child?

As we went back to my sister-in-law’s place yesterday, I am convinced that despite it all, nothing prepares you for death. But the heart, in all its defiance to one’s mind, soldiers on with hope, love and possibility. I pray that this hope, love and possibility will carry my sister-in-law, brother-in-law and nephew through this next difficult period knowing that the ache of losing Priya will never erase completely and only dull in time.

RIP my dear Priya. You have changed our lives for the better and we will miss you so very much. Goodbye thali.