April 9th, 2006

Dear dear friends and family. The blog post from Friday/Saturday was written by my best friends Hajra and Kinjal. The past few days have been very hard for my father and I but we have been able to feel the strength and love mom left us with. Her funeral was held today. Mom looked like she was at peace and resting. I performed the last rites. Dad, myself, a small group of very very close friends and family said goodbye to my mother for the last time. Although she has left us physically, her strength, love, enthusiasm for life, humor surrounds us today. I would like to share with you my eulogy as I hope it will give some closure and support to those who were unable to attend the funeral.
Ohm Namah Shivay
My dear dear family and friends,
I do not know how to talk about my mother without sharing with you one of the many anecdotes she has left us with.
I came home one weekend during my freshman year of college to find the house overflowing with branches and stumps of, what I would later find out, was cedar wood! Apparently an aunty in the community had her cedar tree cut and my mother was so excited she grabbed our next door neighbor, Gunther, and brough the whole tree into our house. "Cedar wood smells sooo good, shaylee" she said to me in that voice of her, full of incredible enthusiasm. Ofcourse, she wouldn't have stopped there; Mom never stopped talking in just one sentence. She listed a whole bunch of reasons why she needed the entire tree in our house. In the coming months, she made coasters, kept chips of cedar wood in her saris and in my cloths. For years, not months, I would bring back laundry from home to find random pieces of wood in my cloths. Mom found joy in the simplest things. (Laughter)
My mother, Rajeshwari Rajnikant Dave, had an incredible enthusiasm for life. Mom's cheerful, loving nature always embraced all that is good in this world, overshadowing anything negative. Mom was/is/and always will be an amazing wife and mother. Dad and her were really one of a kind. Talking at the same time about the same thing in different words and trying to over-talk the other one. Did I say that fast enough? My parents and I had some great family vacations. They always involved stopped at every body of water that came on the road so mom could put her feet in it and taking 3 hour stops for Dad's photography. She was also an amazing sister to her 5 brothers and 2 sisters. She had a very special way of bringing my families together. I'm sure most of you know that I have three sides of family.
If you've ever heard me talk to my mom, you'd know she is my best friend. I talked to her about everything and asked her for advice on anything. Not only was she my friend but she was a friend to my friends too. She made certain that every one of them was fed when they visited. Mummy really had a way of making good friends. As are all gathered here today and I have the opportunity to address you together, I know my mother would want me to tell you that she had an incredible amount of love and respect for each and every one of you.
There is a very special way that my parents and I dealt with the bad times life threw us, we laughed and laughed. We would find a reason to laugh about the silliest things. The day before her surgery the three of us were sitting at breakfast and there was mom, giggling uncontrollably about something incredibly silly. I can't remember what we giggled about but the laughter helped ease the load and the mounting pressure we were all feeling. Today, as you say goodbye to your friend, sister, aunty, I want you to know that she fought very hard to try to be with us physically. And although the outcome wasn't how we wished it would be, she will always be with us. Recently she used to compare our family to a ship. Mom was going to get through these rough times because the ship that is my family had to stay afloat. Vahan Dubadvanu Nathi, she would say in gujarati which means we're not going to let the ship sink. Mom made it through her first open heart surgery and went on to spend 17 wonderful years with Dad and I to make sure that the ship that is my family will not sink. It is because of her strength and her love that I am able to stand here today. Mummy's love, her spirit, her personality will be immortal in our hearts and will that we will find the strength to laugh and to live.