Over the summer my dad’s aunt or my mami ji passed away. She had Alzheimer’s and on July 4th of 2023 she passed.Although I’m sad she’s gone I’m happy her suffering has come to an end.In some Indian cultures you call your aunt on your dad’s side mami and you add the ji as a form of respect. My mamiji had a warm smile that lit up rooms. When I was little and lived in New Jersey our family would make it a ritual and go to the temple every weekend. In my culture,at the temple women and men would sit on different sides and everyone’s heads would be covered. Being a child, I was never able to sit for long and I would always run across the praying room to sit with my dad and then I would run back and sit with mamiji. To keep me quiet she would plop her black leather handbag on her lap and use her slender hands to pick out a clear container of tic tac filled with red, yellow, orange, and green tic tac. She would then open the container and shake it on my tiny hand till at least two or more different colored tic tacs fell out and then she would go back to praying. Chanting the mantras with the pundit.In midst of praying I would bug her, poking her asking for more tic tacs. She never said no, she gave the tic tacs with a warm smile on her face. As years passed her smile faded and she forgot about the tic tacs, she forgot about us, she forgot about everything. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and suffered from dementia. I hadn’t seen her for a long time, but when I did it was hard. Seeing her in her state, I couldn't bear the pain. I was quiet, I felt a knot in my throat, I couldn’t swallow,I couldn’t speak because if I did I would have burst into tears.
Her death had affected so many people, at her funeral everybody was crying,not a single person left without shedding a tear.She was the tic tac lady, a teacher, a mom, and a friend to many. She was a devotee of god and most importantly she was the person that supported my dad when he came from India to start a new life.