Bharati Gautam
The day was the memorial service of my very close friend Jenny’s husband Kris. In fact, the second anniversary of their marriage was three days hence.
The creeks around looked like rivers and the rivers in turn like seas for the three day-long heavy rainfall. The roads were flooded. Although it was mid-May, we felt rather cold perhaps due to the rainfall. The cold was demanding at least a light jacket. The church where the service was going to be held was not quite far from our residence, yet we were nearly late because of incessant rain and the Saturday rush. The parking lot was almost full so we parked a bit away from the road. We put up our umbrella and rushed to the church. My husband and I followed the other two couples who too were late for the service. We had never attended any memorial service before. I had no idea about it at all.
In our country the memorial service is not held for ordinary people. It is sometimes held for well-known poets and artists. Obviously the attendants too are from the same circle. It was my first experience— an ordinary person attending another ordinary person’s memorial service. I was not sure what was going to happen inside. People would be crying! Shouting and yelling! Or deathly hush! I was feeling uneasy, yet curious. I did not want to regret later by missing the congregation, for Kris and Jenny both were my very close friends.
As we walked through the door, we could see different photos of Kris with a broad smile on his face. These photos were placed on the bench in the balcony. In some photos he was in his school dress. One photo in the corner showed him in the air force. At the far end of the hall there was a small photo album that contained their wedding photos taken nearly two years back. We had attended their wedding then but now we are in the memorial service. Although everyone could guess what was going to happen in the near future, it was too hard to accept the reality now.
We put our umbrella with other ones stacked in the corner before we walked in to join the congregation. Out feet leaden, hearts heavy.
The hall seemed to have a seating capacity of 200 or so. Almost all chairs were occupied. We decided to sit in the back row to mask our hesitation of the first experience in such a service. We had already placed the bunch of flowers on the dais.
There was a two-page program schedule on each chair. The front page showed one of Kris’s photos in a shirt with green and black spots on a white background. He was smiling broadly. On the top was written ‘Celebration of Life’. I was baffled as how they were going to enjoy the celebration of life in a mourning assembly, yet I decided to wait patiently thinking that it must have some meaning.
It was still raining heavily outside. There were all kinds of people but children. Maybe children were not supposed to be there or they did not want to come. We had left our son at home. All faces looked downcast, but no one was crying. Whoever entered the hall turned grave. The hall was completely silent except the sporadic coughs. But the sound of gloom that reined the hall was so loud that it was ringing in all ears. The gloom seemed to be whispering to all sitting there. In the guise of Kris it seemed to have entered their hearts and making them aware of death dwelling there. How come the man who used to be around is nowhere now! All his possessions are here but he is not. Even his body was there till yesterday. What could be that element whose presence determines our presence on earth! Its absence means our absence. Perhaps, it was just a dream! I wonder how come someone could disappear for good so easily. Kris might not have disappeared either. If so, these people would not be here despite this rain. Our Kris was already reduced to ashes. He was cremated at his will. Sure enough, even if people say the deceased have gone to heaven, they must be somewhere here around us. Such thoughts were crowding into my head.
Someone on the dais looked ready to speak. Oh, he was the priest who had married Kris and Jenny. First of all, he cracked a joke about Kris. Laughter filled the hall. We were brought up in a different society. For us it was the place to mourn but not to laugh. We were supposed to shed tears even if artificial. This is what our society had taught us. I think it was my husband and I who couldn’t laugh at all. According to the priest Dyan, Kris had told him in detail about the type of memorial service he wanted. He had left a detailed list that mentioned how to start the program; who were to speak what; which music to play; who were to shed light on which aspects of his life. It was Kris’s will to celebrate the memorial service as the celebration of life. Then Dyan spoke about their marital life.
In the two years of married life Kris and Jenny had enjoyed their relationship to their heart’s content, which other couples might not savor even in fifty long years. Two years ago the wedding ceremony was held on the lawn by the seashore. It was a sunny day of May. About fifty close friends and relatives had attended the ceremony. The celebration was simple, yet very meaningful, and pure. The couple seemed spiritually connected. The ceremony was the union between two pure souls. It looked as if held in the fairyland in the celebration of two hearts. We could hear nothing but the sound of waves breaking on the shore and the gentle breeze blowing around. Surroundings were so pleasantly quiet that we could even feel our heartbeats. All knew that Kris was suffering from lung cancer. Also, they were not unaware that lung cancer is next to the death penalty even in the country like America. Everybody looked grave at the very realization of the fact. According to the couple’s wish, the guests had brought them the plants of their favorite flowers as a wedding gift. The lawn in front of the wedding house (it was Jenny’s friend’s) had turned into a flower garden. Jenny was in a simple gown wrapped in a green shawl. Kris was in a short-sleeved shirt with green and blue spots on a white background and white pants. Fifty year-old Jenny and sixty-year old Kris had never got married before. It’s not only unusual but nearly impossible in the American context.
They had known each other for about two years. Later they started living together in the same apartment. Two months later Kris was diagnosed with lung cancer. It turned up like an earthquake in their relationship. None of them had ever thought of marriage, but one day Jenny told me over the phone about Kris’s proposing her. Jenny’s happiness knew no bounds as she had given up the hope of such a proposal in that age. She sounded rather edgy at the time.
Neither Jenny and Kris nor any guest had the slightest idea how long their married life was going to live. Most of them might have doubted that the couple would celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. It was only after their marriage that Kris had undergone chemotherapy.
I had seen Kris and Jenny four times or so after the wedding ceremony. They would busy themselves with their own work at home, or would be out travelling around the country or abroad. The couple had been savoring each moment of the last days of their married life.
One day a friend of Kris wrote on his web page that the doctor had given Kris a life expectancy of four months. The news left us completely shocked. Had it been in our context there would have been a flood of people consoling and pitying them! But nothing like this happened in their case. Rather than accepting death dejectedly and helplessly, Kris was living a meaningful life with joy and happiness in his wife’s company. The couple had accepted even the curse of cancer as a blessing.
Jenny would often say.”Perhaps, I would have never married if Kris hadn’t suffered from cancer.”
“Kris and his cancer taught me the value, beauty and mystery of life. Finally I got to know what the most precious thing in our life is”. One day Jenny mailed me.
We are all ignorant about the time limit for our life. Forgetting how short-lived life we are living, we tend to ponder over eternity of our existence. We foolishly waste countless moments in petty things. Under an illusion that we have abundant time, we keep striving to achieve the unachievable, and the days come, much to our regret, when we have nothing but zero in our hands. I was thinking about Kris and Jenny as Dyane was talking about their married life.
“By leaving a detailed list of his memorial service Kris has proved that a good man doesn’t trouble others even in his funeral”, with Dyane’s these words the hall echoed with laughter. I forced a smile.
“Kris asked me to do one more thing which I should do right now. He has left a letter in Jenny’s name. He wanted me to read it out in public.” A sudden silence fell over the hall as Dyane produced a letter from the envelop. My eyes were moist with tears as he began to read out the letter, breaking the hushed silence.
In the letter Kris had expressed his gratitude to Jenny for her selfless and pure love. He was so grateful for all what she had done. He was full of praise for Jenny, her greatness and devotion to his life. The letter was so emotional that the people in the hall were all sobbing by the time Dyane came to its end.
Different speakers shed light on different aspects of Kris’s life. They all highlighted his short but exciting life. He did not only live for himself but for many people as well until his last breath. No one in their speech mentioned his earnings, academic qualifications, medals, and promotion. They only mentioned how Kris had touched their hearts and how he had taught them about the beauty of life.
The so-called prestige, property, position that we are chasing die with us. What remains here is the impression that one heart leaves on other hearts. All the outer coverings of these posts, medals, prestige and riches come apart one after another until there stands an ordinary human being in his natural form. The significance and meaning of our life depends on our relationship with others and how sincere we are in this relationship. Throughout the service, the guests were describing Kris as an ordinary man with the extra-ordinary sense of life and relationship. The gathering wasn’t held to pity the Kris who had been bedridden for months. It was not for the feeble man whose lungs were eaten away by cancer, nor for the man who was tired of frequenting hospital and swallowed by the horror of chemotherapy, and radiation, nor even for his short life and even shorter married life. It was not held to express sympathy to Jenny and the rest of her lonely life. The people were there to celebrate Kris’s more than six decades of successful life. It was the celebration of life journey made by an amiable, helpful and light-hearted man. It was the celebration of life.
[Translation: Bal Ram Adhikari]
[Bharati Gautam is a Nepali writer based in the United States of America. She is the author of Aakashmathiko Sahar (poems), Smritima Bhimu (memoirs) and Americama Aama (novel). ]