Three Years Only. Yet a Lifetime Away.

The sadness can still engulf, drowning you as it will in your own tears.
But there is calm down below.
There is peace, knowing it was a smooth and peaceful transition for the one you lost to the Unknown.
There is life, that goes on, its glorious ups and its 180 turns and its downs, the downs you thought you were done with it since the Big One.
There is peace.

And you still want to talk. You want to share how it happened. Where you were, where everyone else was, what you were thinking, how you knew but still didn't want to believe it.

And the night before was Christmas Eve. A night, as most nights of my life, where you heard echoes and distant choruses of choirs, unconsciously picking out the tunes in your mind of 'Silent Night', 'Hark Now Hear the Angels Sing', 'Joy to the World'. A chilly, peaceful, almost-holy night in Chennai. The last night.

And then it was Christmas day. Which did not mean much to a mostly-non religious, but deeply spiritual man. A man. He was more than a man - he is a presence, a background score to my life, a landscape in my mind. He can't be gone because I can see him dismiss things with his large, long-fingered fair hand. I can feel his silky silver hair as I would brush it in the last days. I can hear his voice belting 'Hava Nagilah', along with Harry Belafonte, their voices merging until now I can hear him in the recording.

But what gives me most peace is knowing he is not him anymore. He is beyond. He is so much more than his songs and his myriad life stories and his opinions and his body, so much more than his body. I know, deep within, he is more than happy with my life right now, he is content to see me Learning - stumbling, struggling, succeeding. He is free from even me.

That gives me peace.