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Spice of life | A daughter’s tribute: It’s never enough of a lifetime
Death is not just the end of life. Death is a tale of unfulfilled dreams, the leaving behind of loved ones, the emptiness, the emotional vacuum and a trail of footprints on the sands of time
As the day would draw to a close, she would say, “I’m scared of the night.” The never-say-die spirit, the die-hard optimism, the ever-rejuvenating hope, and the incessant prayers didn’t seem to be helping. She had lived a full life, one would say. But, for a nature-loving person, someone who nurtures a deep passion for words, an avid dreamer, with the deepest desire to live life to the fullest, someone so non-stereotypical, it’s never enough of a lifetime.
Death is not just the end of life. Death is a tale of unfulfilled dreams, the leaving behind of loved ones, the emptiness, the emotional vacuum and a trail of footprints on the sands of time.
At 66, my mother, Parambir Kaur (1956-2022), was a super-woman, who having faced all shades of life was so resolute about one thing, and that was life.
Her register tells the incomplete tale of The Story of My Healing that she had started writing a few months before she passed away on November 28. That day, I saw life slowly slipping away, as we were all glued to the ups and downs of the stats on the pulse oximeter.
Life comes to a naught one day. No wonder William Shakespeare wrote, “Life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
Justice hasn’t been done. She didn’t deserve to die that way. A stickler to the ideal kind of food and eating habits, regular exercise, a balanced diet with all nutrients well managed. She was a perfect case of someone, who could never ever have cancer. But, that was not to be.
Nevertheless, she fought like a hero, which she truly was all through her life and in her death. Her words would linger on, her positivity would stay and she continues to live on through my words.
A staunch believer of “let me live unseen, unknown and unlamented let me die”, she stayed miles away from limelight. Instead of promoting herself, she would always present herself in a toned down and lesser than reality picture.
Her words speak volumes of her philosophy of life. Through the books she wrote and articles she contributed for the Spice of Life column in this newspaper and also her writings in Punjabi, she’s an unsung hero indeed.
It’s she who is working through me and weaving this wordy catharsis. She continues to speak through me after death, preceded by a life lived to the fullest. I cannot help but dedicate Antony’s eulogy of Julius Caesar to my mother:
“His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, This was a man.”
amritbir1509@gmail.com
The writer is a freelance contributor
