Friday, March 11, 2016

The Inheritance of Loss



Illustration by Lauren Monaco


This way of leaving your family for work had condemned them over several generations to have their hearts always in other places, their minds thinking about people elsewhere; they could never be in a single existence at one time. How wonderful it was going to be to have things otherwise. 
Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

Kiran Desai describes movingly the dilemma of those of us who have traveled far from home for education or employment, leaving behind our loved ones and the way of life, forging a new life but always missing the old.

I am more fortunate than Desai's characters who went far from their hometowns in India to England and the US but found it hard to assimulate into their new societies and sadly also did not succeed in bettering themselves or their circumstances.  Jemubhai (the Judge) became a warped, harsh man as a result of his years at Cambridge; Biju slaved in greasy and often sleazy kitchens in New York, to have his savings and belongings down to to his pants robbed on his return to Kalimpong to be reunited with his father.  In contrast, right from the get-go, I was fortunate to adjust seemingly seamlessly to American society.  As a university student, I adapted well and was included and embraced by my fellow American college mates.  Upon graduation, I proceeded to live the "American Dream."  But through it all, until the deaths of my parents, my heart and mind were always here and also there. I would constantly be thinking about my grandparents, my parents -- missing them, worrying about them.  Despite the distance that separated us, I managed to be embroiled in their lives, tackling happy circumstances and complications from afar, and always feeling inadequate and torn.

And in spite of how well I have adjusted to American life, there is always a yearning for things from "home" and of the way of life there (many aspects are far from ideal and from which I would not want to be subjected again).  And even though my closest ties are now severed by death, a part of me will always be tied to the land of my birth -- to its culture, to its landscape, and to its people.  Living the American life in the present yet subjugated to the memory of the people and the life back home.

In a sense, everyone feels the same way when she leaves family and hometown to study or work in another city, even in her home country with all its familiarity.  The dilemma is probably more painful and the parting more poignant when we have to cross oceans and cultures.

Sometimes the ache for loved ones and "home" is so acute that you wonder if it's worth the costs. But that is the way of life for many of us living in the present and those in generations past and in generations to come.  How wonderful indeed it would be "to have things otherwise" -- to finally be home and ever be with the ones you love and never ever having to say goodbye again.


But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 
2 Peter 13-14



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