Ammaji

I'm grateful for the ways my dog teaches me how to love unconditionally and embrace the simple joys in life. I'm grateful for fresh baguettes from the grocery store around the corner. I'm grateful for running with a little more ease today after a few rough days. I'm grateful for naturally adopting the habit of writing to-do lists, which allows me to stay on top of things. I'm grateful for our cozy red armchair by the window where I can work and people watch. I'm grateful for hopping on a queer NYC Zoom meeting I used to attend and seeing + hearing old fellows who were an integral part of my early sobriety. I'm grateful for going to a meeting where they read the actor/director para in the Big Book and people shared their perspectives on it.  I'm grateful to be in a place where I actively protect my serenity and don't let it be easily subsumed by random, destabilizing events throughout the day. I'm grateful for the gorgeous sunset yesterday and how the clouds were lit up in breathtaking colors.

It hadn't occurred to me until sitting down to write this, but as of July it has been 4 years since my grandmother, who I called Ammaji, passed. Coincidentally enough she has been on my mind of late because of a fellow who spoke about his experience with Step 9. What stuck with me about his share was how he made amends to people who had already passed before he became sober. It got me thinking about my own journey and almost instantly my grandmother came to mind.

Her husband, my grandfather, died in 2008, but she managed to continue living solo in their small flat in India until mid-2019. It was at that point we needed to bring her to the U.S. since there was no family or reliable network there to help her live safely by herself. I felt incredibly sad for her when this happened. Here was a woman in her late 80s (maybe early 90s?) who didn't speak a lick of English, had left India only a handful of times previously, was mostly physically immobile, and now had to come to NYC to live under my parent's roof where she didn't know anybody else. In her shoes I'd have been so frightened and frustrated. She certainly was in those final months.

While my grandmother helped raise me for several years in India as my parents were busy working, I met her only sporadically in my adulthood. A variety of factors played into this. She never wanted to leave India and I rarely had a desire to go there. She had a very argumentative personality with people in her life and her short fuse was unfortunately inherited by my dad. Her treatment of my mom was quite toxic (typical daughter-in-law stuff), except until the very end when only my mom was taking care of her. Of course the biggest reason for maintaining my distance was because I was gay and had made a concerted effort to separate myself from all family - emotionally and geographically - to avoid their judgement. Her being 8,000+ miles away certainly made it easy.

In sobriety and now with some distance from her death, I've been revisiting our relationship and my views on her as a person. Using the framework of Steps 8 and 9 I've been putting myself in her shoes in an effort to understand her perspective better. She was born in a poor village under Colonial British rule and married off to my grandfather in her teens. Social structures at the time didn't give women like her much sovereignty outside of being a mother and a housekeeper. Education wasn't encouraged for girls with her background so she perhaps didn't always feel empowered to interact with the world. Given the myriad of socioeconomic limitations she inherited since birth, I can totally see why she would have innumerable, hard-to-squash resentments. If I were in her position I too would be short with a partner that was thrust upon me and kids I needed to have to prove my worth. I would treat my son's wife with the hostility I had likely absorbed from my own in-laws - hurt people hurt after all. I'd definitely hold on tight to my world views within the religious parameters that were ingrained in me before I could even read or speak. I guess luckily for me my grandmother obediently played her role in society (well, mostly). If she hadn't then who knows if I would even be alive let alone have this comparatively charmed life in America.

Just as I've begun to see my parents as people over the past few years, I am also seeing my grandmother as a person who once had her own hopes and dreams. Sure she was tough to be around, but despite all the misogyny and colonial bigotry she dealt with on a daily basis, her core feelings for me were genuine love. That is something that can never be changed and is what I hold onto now the most. Towards the end of her life I have many regrets around my interactions with her. I was in the tail end of my drinking career so I was never fully present while she lived here. Something she always looked forward to because she couldn't get out of the house by herself was me driving her around NYC. We would have beautiful, funny, and deep conversations during that time, but it is also marred by darkness for me. Unbeknownst to her I'd buy alcohol while she waited in the car and keep it in the trunk during our trips. Sometimes I'd even show up inebriated at my parent's home and hang out with her. While she probably never guessed I was drunk because it was so outside her perception of me, it was still a shitty way for me to spend time with her like that. As a single man in his 30s she probed quite regularly into why I wasn't married yet and her last wish for me was to settle down before she died. Part of me wonders if she suspected something about my sexuality. Even if she did it likely wouldn't matter as that could be easily remedied by marrying the right woman. Since she was the only person at that time in my life who I was having truly real conversations with (I wasn't on speaking terms with my parents, I'd shunned other family, and friends were long gone by this point), I do think about what would've happened if I had told her my truth. Maybe she would have surprised me.

I am still working through what sort of amends I can make to her now that she's passed. I obviously cannot become straight so that's out the window. Giving financial support to the local school in her village, especially for the young girls growing up there today, has been on my list. Putting her picture up and thinking about her memory in kind, gentle ways - giving her the grace she may not have been given for most of her life - would be a nice way to honor her regularly. In our Hindu customs we cremate the body and her ashes have already been distributed in the Ganges, however I think visiting Varanasi in the future (a holy site in India) could be a thoughtful gesture on my part. Of course the best amends is continuing to respect and be of service to my parents who are still alive. That and staying on the sober path for the rest of my days. Even though she's long gone, my doing this Step 9 exercise has been helpful in deepening my connection with her in ways I avoided when she was around. I'm finally focused on finding the light in our relationship and being grateful for all of it, scars included.