To The Girls

I have seen this famous scene from The Girls on the Bus where Carla Gugino's character Grace Gordon Greene tells her daughter "The work is the list of my obituary and you, my dear, are the last." And when the daughter asks her who will read her obituary, Grace replies "Believe it or not, I have friends." And today I was reminded that if we are fortunate enough to have some good friends, we will for sure have someone to cry at our funeral and read our obituary. 

When my Ammammai, Bhagavathy, died, we realised how many friends that 4th pass, Music diploma holding, housewife had. My parents, my Thatha (grandfather), and my uncles have a lot of friends and acquaintances, who came over to pay respect to my dead grandmother, but what amazed us was the number of people who were just Bhagavathy's friends who came to say the final goodbye; the friends she made at the temples and at the Carnatic Music concerts that she made sure to attend. The simple housewife who was even forbidden from sitting on the verandah and chitchatting with the neighbours! 

And today, while I was next door to pay respects to the grandma who passed last night, the loudest whimper and weeping came from her closest friend. While the rest of us neighbours and her children, grandchildren and extended family cried quietly for the dead lady, her best friend cried the loudest, enquiring whether she suffered a lot in her final moments (she did not, Alhamdulillah) and mourning the loss of her closest friend and companion. For as long as I can remember, I have seen the two women spend at least an hour or more every evening talking about everything they cared about. I cried more for the woman who lost her best friend and suddenly became lonelier than ever than the family who lost their mother/grandmother. It made me miss my girls a little more and hope that one day we will all get to live next door and spend hours every day with each other. If we are fortunate enough, the universe will gift us some humans who become closer and more important than our blood relations, and we can rest easy knowing that someone for sure is reading our obituary and shedding a few tears when we die.