Goin' On A Journey. In Memoriam: Mridula Jose, 1944-2015

My dear, sweet and almost always upbeat sister-in-law, Milla, (Mridula Jose), is no more.  A positive force in the lives of all who knew her, Milla and that force which appears to be so inexplicably negative came together on September 30, 2015.  The result is a terrible silence.

My sister-in-law had a period of extraordinary lucidity the day before she succumbed to a disease she had been fighting for years.  I want to call everyone and say good-bye, she told her son, Ranjit.  After doing this, she discussed final matters with him, including instructions for her funeral.

We got our call a few hours before she passed away. It was difficult for her to talk; her speech was slurred.  Despite these impediments, the Milla we knew shone through like sunlight at the mouth of a cave.

I will never forget how she announced her impending death.  "Time to go!" she told us.  It wasn't so much what she said but the way she said it.  Goin' on a journey, it's all right.  Those three words were vintage Milla.  No one else could put a positive spin on a negative spiral in such a disarmingly simple way.

She subsequently thanked us for everything--these were for us her last words.  In Indian culture, you don't tell your relatives that you love them all the time, but at the right time.  The right time had come.  We shouted, "I love you!  We love you!  We'll miss you forever!"  Sometimes five minutes add up to eternity, a truly glorious sum.

Her body decided to retire, not Milla.  A gifted teacher, Dr. Mridula Jose continued to walk into classrooms until the day she could no longer walk.  Many, many students whom she encountered while teaching literature at Stella Maris will, I am very sure, never forget her.

Real teachers cannot stop.  On her final day on earth, shortly before she called us, she asked Ranjit to read aloud T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, one of her favorite poems.  She had to say good-bye to literature as well!  Ranji later told me that while he was reading the poem. she interrupted many times in order to deepen his understanding of the text.  A little room in Besant Nagar became, as it were, a large classroom in Stella Maris.  She was doing what she loved, teaching again, alas! for the very last time.

One of her last wishes, Ranji informed me, is that if any song is sung or played during a memorial for her it should be her favorite hymn, Nearer My God to Thee..  I don't think Ranji was familiar with the melody; I sang a few bars over the phone.

A few hours later, my wife, Nirmala, Milla's older sister, and I were sitting in meditation before an altar we had recently set up in our living room.  (We had transformed our coffee table to a shrine to commemorate the very recent death of Shyamala, Nirmala's older sister.  Four deaths in five months!  This has been a rough year.)  During meditation, I thought of Milla's request.  I knew I had a Gospel version of Nearer My God to Thee somewhere.  Rising from meditation, I searched till I found it.  While I was playing the hymn, a few feet from Nirmala and Nataraja, we got the phone call that Milla had died a few minutes before. We'll remember those moments "forever" as well.

Earth is a different place for us, now that Milla is no longer on it.

A few years ago, I composed a little hymn entitled, Goin' On A Journey.  The lyric tells a story of a near-death experience that becomes a real-death experience. The penultimate stanza is sad: "I have to leave my loved ones... It's hard, it's hard, it's very hard..."  Joy triumphs, however, with the return of the major key of the final stanza: We're gonna be together, it's all right!/ We're gonna be together, it's all right!/  Soon we're gonna be together/ no umbrellas needed EVER,/ We're gonna be together, it's all right!"

I didn't write that last stanza; Milla did. 


Addendum, one year later: