The gut wrenching pain when burying your mother

My beautiful 'Bombay girl' mother. We could not fill her coffin with bought flowers, as the shops were closed with the quarantine. But we gave her a piece of Hayes road to carry with her instead-- the brilliant heliconias growing in the garden that she probably planted. When the original homestead was being pulled down, I took a clump of the heliconias and planted them in our farm in Hoskote. They grew and flourished there and multiplied. When the apartment block came up I brought a cement pot filled with them back and replanted them along the wall. They have become an immense clump, happy to be flourishing on the wet waste from the pit. Strangely at this time the flowers were all in bloom and so when I was told that there was no shop with flowers to buy, I did not bother -- I know she would have preferred her own flowers, from her own home. Mum loved Hayes Road even though she was married into it from Mumbai.

The brilliantly coloured heliconias from Hayes, that went with her Mum’s burial was much easier emotionally for me without the long drawn out Mass in church, with the hundreds of well wishers present. Burials with church services have a distribution of communion and filing past the coffin and it's a nerve wracking experience for the family as hundreds come up to wish and condole. Instead it was all over in a short few hours with a service at home. Sadly our regular known Jesuits from St. Joseph’s were not present, just priests from the Patna province, who would give her weekly communion when she could swallow.

Mum when she taught me in CJM, New Delhi The old man priest seemed to feel it was more important to talk about how well she had been looked after and the cleanliness of the room, rather than an eulogy for Mum. He gave the person incharge 100% for cleanliness. I wanted to say he was lucky my mother was dead, cause she might have told him -- cleanliness is a given in OUR homes! We don't need your certificate. He was embarrassingly and obviously primed to say so, the silly old man. I was glad I could read out David’s eulogy which came from the heart, which would have made her happy.

At a picnic with her FAPS students in Coorg The family grave was opened out and Mum was interred along with Nana, Dad's mother. Nana’s remains were put into a smaller box which was lowered down first. Then a slab of stone and earth and then, Mum’s coffin went down. Such clear foresight on the part of Dad to have bought both graves side by side for his parents and the space inbetween as well. Now the family can all be buried together without having to run around the cemetery looking for graves. Technology helped to bring my sister Christine Pereira, and brother Mark Furtado and families living in Perth, and David in the UK to 'attend' the burial of their beloved grandmother and mother.It was amazing that we could show them the entire service and they were present through it all as they could not fly down to be physically present.

As a teen with her baby sister Priya Mendens who is a local singer, generously came and helped us sing a number of hymns which calmed us all at the site. We did have to sing a number of hymns as the Parish priest -- Monseigneur Jayanathan from St. Patricks church took time to arrive. The grave was opened out and the foot boards and ropes ready to receive the coffin. Burial is a gut wrenching, heart churning, emotion draining process, which I have never been able to stomach. Since the time my Nanna was buried I hate it and avoid all funerals. But then it has to be done and hiding like I normally do like a coward, I forced myself to be present. I kept looking at Dad's headstone to tell him she was coming and Pappa and Nana too. They could have a jolly good party together-- the four of them. Free from the constraints of battling kids, which they must be sick of. But by the time the lowering of the coffin happened and the dreadful thudding of the soil on a beautifully bathed and powdered Mum, my legs could not hold me and I sat on the ground. Weak, disoriented and exhausted, as it had all been too emotionally draining for me. My family understands and I prayed I did not become nauseous.

Mum with her favourite cousin -- Joy My brother John organised the entire burial process with the undertakers, the coffin and the hearse.That is the worst part of a burial and it’s amazing how he handles it with no drama, exactly like my father did with his parents. Except Dad had both parents buried in a week and a newborn baby inbetween. A lesser man would have crumbled. God is good, he finally heard our prayers to release Mum from the bondage of unendurable pain for so many years. I would come to see her everyday after my jog, watering the garden and making the chappatties for breakfast. I would hold her head and say -- GO Mum, why don’t you go. And then the day after the doctor who had visited, grandly upping all sorts of needs of hers left, maybe Mum heard her and decided it was time to go. For a woman used to making her own decisions, to being handled by three servants day and night, was torturous for me to see. Being the eldest I was used to being my parents right hand for everything they did. It broke me to see what they were reduced to, with outsiders deciding what was to be done for them and how their savings was spent.

My extremely good looking parents But the sorrow of finally interring her in the ground was unbearable and I could not throw that handful of soil on her. I just sat on the floor wincing with every thud of soil on my just bathed, lace clad mother. Clods of soil, closing her forever from my view and from being able to see her ever again. But after two days of being a zombie I sit writing this and talking to myself saying, shake yourself up. Mum is in a much better place, a place you wanted her to go to. I take my cup of coffee to the terrace and let the breeze play on my face and dry my tears. I hammer into my brain that my parents have gone and probably I will be the next in line.

My handsome, aeronautical engineer -- Dad. My book " A Bend in the River of Life' Is a paean to my parents before Parkinsons reduced them to lingering shadows of themselves. I have had hundreds of people who have gained solace from reading my book. That is good, as that was my plan anyway, because I believe life’s experiences need to be shared. Life is a circle and Mum’s passing is the end of an era. She and Dad would not want me to grieve, but grieve I must. I was their first born, I saw the best of them, I enjoyed the best from them, so I need to slowly let go and let them live as memories in my heart and as the inspiration in whatever I do, for the rest of my life.