On revival, time, memory

I dedicate this post to those who have woven in and out of my life, as well as those who remain.

As the end of the year approaches, I've been thinking a lot about time. What is time? Something born from the human mind. And for what purpose? In an ever-changing world, we look to time as constant, unchanging. The control variable in our lives. Because, we need stability. We need to hold on to something, to know that it's always there, repeating its cycle at the same intervals, even when our lives are falling apart.

Stages of our lives must always terminate. Like bubbles, they are perfect circles carrying us inside them. From inside we can see the outside world, but we float by it, ignore it, focus on the space in the bubble. Then there are those who look out, to the past or to the future, living in a world that once was or will be. But somehow, while the future holds promise and the past holds certainty, one will most definitely live unhappily staring out of the bubble, wanting to be somewhere else. Like all bubbles, moments must also burst. Burst, and then we find ourselves floating by in another bubble. And all we have left of our previous bubble is a memory.

My great-grandmother has Alzheimer's disease. It used to be mild, where she forgot where she put her hairpins, or didn't remember to close the front door. In those days, she told me stories. About how, in the very same house in which we were sitting, she once fried mountains of puffy, golden pooris in sizzling oil for my mum and her cousins when they visited. Stories of my grandmother's childhood. Stories filled with bright fabrics, delicate milk-sweets, and my uncles and aunts. She was very well aware that her time left was limited. Since then, I visited her in that very same house. The only house left in our possession from the expanses that my great great grandfather, a domineering, intense landlord, once owned. The rest of the land was lost by my great- grandfather, or taken away by the communist government. Except that house. The house where my mother was born, where my grandmother played, where my great-grandmother fried her pooris. They had to sell it last year- my great-grandparents need assistance as they approach their 100s. My great-grandmother, last time I saw her, couldn't remember me. She didn't know who my mother was, or even her own daughter. She requires help to perform even the most basic functions. She is in a wheelchair because she has forgotten how to walk. As we were about to leave the house that day when she didn't remember me, we took a picture. And just for a second, a fleeting moment, there was something in her deep blue eyes. A memory, recognition perhaps. Her eyes flickered and glowed. And, like a bubble, it was gone the next second. Her memories are alive, somewhere deep, deep inside her soul. And she told me those stories so that she could keep them alive. So I could tell my children, and them theirs. So that a part of her would never perish from this earth.

Memories are powerful. They drive our emotions. They are everlasting if one can manage to pass them down. The memories I've had with you all, I never want them to die. Like my great-grandmother preserved her memories, I too will never let the memories of this year perish. Thank you for the time I've spent with you.