DEAD WOMAN'S PHONE NUMBER

Last week, I gave a eulogy for my grandmother. I was in jitters the day before. It was unlike any speech I had done before.  In my head, my word vomit in those 5 minutes would determine how she was remembered by the people who came for the funeral (at least the ones who did not know her that well). I had to verbalize a fitting legacy. But more importantly, in a childish sense,  it would be the last time that I would get to talk to her - face to face - even though I knew that she couldn't possibly hear me. 

Following the funeral, it was little difficult for all of us to look at her things - her sarees, her airbed, towels......An absurd thought occurred to me then. What if she had a phone? More specifically, what if she had a phone number? 

If she had a number, then it would soon get deactivated; after a point of time, it would be reassigned. What would I have done then?  Message her everyday, only to get a "sorry,  wrong number", one morning in return? 

When my dad died and was buried in our family plot, I sometimes went to his tomb and tried to talk to him - that was before I had a personal phone and because that physical reminder was so readily accessible. Now that ammachi is buried in a public cemetery that does not afford me the same kind of privacy, and is in a different state,  I can't exactly do that.  I have often thought of what members of religious traditions that do not have such physical reminders do. I do know that now that I have a phone, I would have texted her if she had a phone number. 

I would have told her number how much she meant to me; that I love and miss her. All my life, I have been brought up knowing that death is a certainty (having experienced personal loss at a young age) and that it's better to tell people everything I want to while they are still alive because life is just that short. But that doesn't mean that I want to stop talking. I have always relied on words - to express, to comfort and to connect. I am scared that if I stop talking, I will forget her. I am scared that one day I will wake up without remembering anything about the 22 years she loved me; I'm scared that just like the phone number that got reassigned, the corner of my heart that I keep her in will be given to someone else.

So what would I have done? Call my number from hers occasionally to keep it from going inactive? Keep sending messages as long as I can, only to be read by SIM operators somewhere? If so, are 90 days or whatever limit they give me enough? Or do I let go and find other physical reminders to tell her things that I want to? 

Is there any credibility to words that can't be seen, read or heard? Is that why the idea of a phone number appealed to me so much - that however passive, it still had a recipient?

All these musings are a moot point now because she never had a phone number. I'm glad about its implications; that she was never alone long enough for her to need a separate number. I am glad that I don't have to deal with the confusion of a stranger responding to a number that I associated with my ammachi. However, it does not subside my fears. 

But I will be fine. I will figure out a non-digital way to connect to her; I will nail my memories of her to the corner of my heart if I have to; and make sure that sun always shines upon that place. I have to believe that I can make sure that hypothetical ten digits cannot set the limit to my relationship with my grandmother.