Meesha Sharma

February 21, 2024 — Wednesday

Mumma passed away at 10:55 pm from a heart attack.
11:43 pm — the call from my sister.

Sometimes I have no capacity to continue. I feel a deep sadness—a gaping hole inside my chest, inside my life—a sadness I will carry until the light leaves my eyes.

The love of my life was my mother.

On her final day on earth, I saw her still face, lips parted as if trying to call out to one of her daughters to come help her. Those dry lips, almost forming words. She must have been in so much pain. She never asked for help — not once in her life. I wonder about her childhood now. How was she raised? What circumstances hardwired her to always abandon her own needs and desires, to suppress her hurt and pain so completely?

Her cheeks were cold. Still soft, but surprisingly cold for the touch I was used to.

As the women of the house cut away the sheet the hospital had wrapped her in, I looked at each mark on her body intently, making mental notes, committing everything to memory. The stretch marks on her belly from birthing four daughters. Her beautiful bosom where I rested my head and breathed in the smell of the day — sometimes cooking, always mixed with heady perfume and marigold flowers from the Sai Baba temple she frequented. Her scrawny toes. Her gentle but hardworking, worn-out fingers. The sun spots on her cheeks.

The bhabhis of the family cleaned her with milk and honey — performing antim seva — the last service. Women caring for a woman one final time — giving her a dignified goodbye. My aunt’s daughter-in-law— pulled off her own gold earring to place between Mumma’s lips, to send her off with a token. Rituals unknown to us until that moment. It was a strange time to be an adult; so many elders were absent. No one to guide us. No one to help us prepare.

I just wanted to soak in every second of my mumma. To see every last inch of her body before she no longer inhabited this physical form that I loved her in.

I remember frantically pacing the length of her body, kneeling down to see up close how the women of the family were getting her ready for her final journey. They kept asking me to stand back. To not touch her. To not lose my shit as they undressed her and dressed her again in a suit. It is so unbelievable in that moment — for your loved one’s body to not react, to not respond. You keep expecting them to wake up any moment, as if they’re in a deep, deep sleep. Even in death, her inner radiance, her strength, her hard-fought place in this world stood strong.

Rituals in Hinduism carry meaning and science. They offer a slow, sacred goodbye.