Honouring 'Your Honour'

Losing a parent is one of the worst things that can happen. Those last moments where you stand watching helplessly as the last signs of life leave. The person who bids adieu is at peace experiencing the pleasures of heavenly peace but for those of us bystanders in this life’s journey, it is a void that can never be replaced.

I lost my dad a few weeks ago. It is something I cannot explain. Why God? Is a question that immediately pops up. Then the furious preparations for the final adieu. My spouse and my daughter were our strength. Seeing to every detail and seeing that everything was done to precision a quality I admire in my husband who leaves no stone unturned.

Coming home after all the formalities was another chapter. We talked late into the night about father.

He retired from the judiciary as a District and Sessions Judge and the president of the District consumer forum. He was one of the first four to be offered the chair of the first ever consumer forums when they were introduced at the divisional levels of the state.

A brilliant student and sportsman in his school days, he saw a double promotion, representing sports, tennis being his favourite, debating, elocution and the works. While math and physics were his forte, English and Shakespeare were his favourite.

He was a morally upright judge. The lawyers who lost their cases solemnly said they were Privy Council judgements. Compassion, honesty, simplicity and humility were his lifestyle. He was a quiet man, intelligently witty and totally unassuming.

A devoted husband, his nephew once asked him, "Uncle, don’t you like going to hotels?" "Why should I?" he quipped. "When I have married the best cook." A doting father and grandfather and a best friend for life.

We feel his presence more than ever. Tears don’t trickle down anymore, there’s only a inexplainable peace he has left behind. Quietly conversing with him has now become a way of life. Asking him for favours is what my mother does, all the time.

"I want to do Law" was what our daughter told us in her eight grade. I was quietly elated but did not express it. The determination to learn law continued. Now well into her second year in one of the top Law schools in the country she is the chosen one, the apple of his eye, to continue a grand legacy, one of compassion, honesty, simplicity and humility. The song has ended but the melody lingers on.