During the last rite in the early morning hours of 13 December as we gathered on the banks of a river to complete the 16 days of mourning for our mother, the priests who saw through all the rites from day one led us on prayer to see our mother in all of nature, in the chill and cool air at the break of dawn, in the gusts of breeze and wind that brushed our faces and made us shiver as we sat in wet cloths, in the ice cold waters of the river that was full to its brim and rushing by us in an apparent hurry, the morning mists that shrouded the place bringing visibility to mere meters, the rain clouds that awaited to pour down, the trees and their branches that occasionally took a dip in the rushing waters too, and the ground that we stood on. This was exactly what Ramalinga Adigal told the handful of his faithful followers moments before he disappeared into a locked room in Sithivalagam in Methukuppam in 1874. He would merge with nature and all of us. My brother in a piece dedicated to my mother at https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2022/12/10/when-we-die-do-we-really-die/ quoted a poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye that goes as follows:
“Do not stand at my grave and weep,I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush.
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the star shine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left.”