Empty Nest, Once Again

It is exactly one month since I bid her good bye.."I will miss you, mom" I whispered in her ears as I bent down to kiss on her cold forehead for the last time.a tiny smile dancing on her lips even in the grip of death..She looked almost regal draped in a gold and red brocade shawl. Her skin fairer than usual...the shadow of death all over her body.Some one held me trying to console ..the usual words.. She was old and sick... it is good that she didn't suffer more. Yeah, that is true. But when you lose a dear one you don't want to be logical, for grief knows no logic .
I walked back to the room, looked at her bed on which she lay the previous night struggling for breath . Little did I knew that it was going to be her last struggle. Little did I knew that death was at the door waiting for me to fall asleep...perhaps he felt that had I been awake I may not let him take her away so easily....But ultimately he won which is the only reality of life.

As minutes roll into hours and hours into days.....the reality sinks in more and more deeply .The grief is still raw ...Sleepless nights flooded with memories...good, bad , indifferent. Our innumerable arguments, the song I composed about her....she was never tired of listening to it. The tiff we had over a pair of gold earrings.Hugging those memories as my only solace I lay awake in my bed and ask myself like Macbeth

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

As if on queue comes a message in my email this morning :

"Never get hurt when god takes something off your hands,
it's sure that he is leaving u empty handed to receive something better."

A message from up above ? Perhaps.

Hasn't the Lord assured Na me bhakta pranashati ?