A Night of Remembrance

 

It's been four years since that night. 

My ammachi was placed in a large glass container by the time I got to the hospital. Only unlike the jars in laboratories, she wasn't pickled or floating. 

During my Uber drive to the hospital, all I could think of was how I always found reasons to pick a fight with velliommy. She was a woman after her own heart, and I never fully accepted her nerve. She never worked her whole life but always had money to spend on herself and her grandkids. She could laugh even while the house burned down. She would pee on whatever was around if there were no toilets in the vicinity (you could put her face on Pee Safe and would never regret it). 

But her nerve went beyond these things. 

She forgave and asked for forgiveness with a laugh, loved with all her might, and sang loud enough for the neighbourhood to know she was awake. She read the obituary every day and wondered how people were dealing with losses. If you were in the mood for sex-ed, she'd tell you all about tying your tubes and why asshole men did not deserve your time, body or mind. Her nerve to live life to the fullest, even at 88, always surprised me. 

I don't think of her every day. No one remembers the dead every day—unless we glance at their framed picture on the wall while rushing to office, stumble on a google memory, or get too drunk that death is all we can think about. Then, velliommy is the first one that pops into my head. Like tonight.

Talk about nerve!