As time goes by

"This Friday is the one year anniversary according to the Tamil calendar," appa said during a call nearly two weeks ago.

He paused.  

Appa never paused between sentences until recently.  Through all these years, it has been with great difficulty that the rest of us managed to get a few words in when he talked.  He loved being in total control of the conversation.  But, he pauses now.  He has an excuse; he is 91 years old.

"A few days after that is D_'s anniversary."

A year ago, my paternal grandmother's second-youngest sister passed away in the US, where her children live, and a few days after that, in the old country, my maternal grandmother's youngest sister died.

When my father spoke through the phone into the ear of my aunt who was unresponsive, he told her to report to grandmother that we are all doing well.  He told the aunt not to worry about the people that she is leaving behind.

Where did the aunt go?  Did she reunite with her favorite sister?

My intellectual and atheistic brain has a simple and definitive answer to those questions. But, the mind can't help wonder if the sisters are together again somewhere.

"Incredible that it has been a year already," I wrote to the aunt's son.

The pandemic has distorted my feel for time.  On one hand, everything seems to be in slow motion and life seems to be a dull and boring drag.  On the other hand, it feels like the year has flown by at a dizzying speed that it is difficult to recall the events over the months.  However contradictory as they sound, the reports from both the hands are true.

"We think of her every day," he wrote in the reply.

We think of those who went before us.  They made possible the life that we now lead, with plenty of sweet memories.

Yes, memories that I truly value.