Passings

(Today's StoryADay.org prompt was to write about a character based on an obituary. I didn't need an obituary, as many characters -- real people -- with interesting lives have passed away in recent years, after passing in and out of my life. The stories that I know of these real people are intimate and special, and not able at this point at least to be shared. So I thought I would try to sketch a character of the concept of death itself.)


In the years since I did my research, the elder generation of immigrants continued to thrive. They also continued to age, naturally, and in a few cases, members of the community died. I was in Muncie when one of the deaths occurred, in an untimely way. I attended the funeral with my parents, and was quite touched by how the service occurred. Nearly all members of the South Asian community were in attendance as were many of the individual's colleagues through Ball State University and other aspects of the mainstream Muncie community. Other members of the Muncie-raised generation of South Asians were at the service, as well. It seemed as if the death had allowed the invisible glue that held the community together to be brought out in full view.

In other cases, I learned about the deaths through phone calls and e-mails from my parents. The news always saddened me. Yet, the stories and the details of the individuals' last moments on earth that my parents relayed to me as well as the feelings they expressed of the survivors touched my heart in a way that is difficult to describe. The stories brought home how close I had become in writing to the immigrants in Muncie, even as my day-to-day life remained distant from theirs. The stories filled me with respect for the integrity of the lives that these immigrants lived. I would like to tell the stories, because I feel they impart valuable life lessons, but I cannot. Not in this book, at least. The individuals' survivors have asked me not to do so, and I have chosen to honor their wishes.

What might dying in a place different from what you might have imagined feel like?

It strikes me that I never asked the elder immigrants about their thoughts on death. They rarely brought it up. When you're alive, it is perhaps one of the things you do not reflect upon with someone not quite your intimate.

The immigrants did talk about death, however. IT was sort of a severance from the home country, the country of birth. India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh ceased to hold tangible meaning as home when one of the markers of home -- a parent -- was no longer there to welcome you. In our family both of my sisters see Muncie as the home of my parents. When they pass, they will stop visiting the town, they say. There would be no more reason to come to Muncie.

What about me? Would I stop visiting Muncie? There would be a question of logistics. With whom would I stay? How would I organize my day? Just two weeks ago, my parents returned from Florida, where they have rented a condo for the the winter months over the past two years. On their return to Muncie, they visited a new condominium development, and made an offer on a unit that was smaller, more compact than the large empty nest home they had had built thirteen years ago. The condominium has a spare bedroom, so the children are always able to stay. But not the whole family all at once.

If we were to arrive in Muncie again to celebrate, say, my mother's eightieth birthday, as we did my dad's eightieth last year, how would we do it? Where would we stay? How would we relax in a cramped space, all of the varied and odd personalities?

These are questions that perhaps parallel those that the immigrants ask as their parents, elder siblings, and beloved uncles and aunties from childhood pass on.

My mother decided shortly after the passing of an old family friend to perform a special havan. As she explained it to me over the phone, it is a ceremony that is considered important to do at least once in your life. It involves a repetitive chant that is said to invoke a powerful vibration. If one performs the havan at a time when no other needs are present, any fears that might be held toward death are said to melt away.