Tag Archives: true love

Service With a Smile

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“Whenever the zikhar of Sewa is mentioned, Basant ji, your name will be there.”

My mum’s closest friend, and adopted elder sister, my Kamlesh Aunty shared these words with us all in side room 1 of ward A8, as my darling mum took her last breath.

Mum had an obsession to serve. She put others at the heart of everything she did. She lived and breathed service to others. She was filled with this love of giving, and she made it central to her existence.

Mum was the epitome of service with a smile. She became The UK’s first sisters volunteer lead for the West Midlands Volunteers in 2005 with the blessings of Baba Hardev Singh Ji. Absolutely aware of the weight of the responsibility now on her shoulders, she kept her motivation the same as it was always. To serve with love. This she did to her last breath.

Within the art of Sewa is a spirit of selflessness. She didn’t think of it as that exactly. She thought of it as unconditional love. The act of giving with the purest love, like a parent to a child, she served.

Kamlesh Aunty shared a story with us, that I had never heard, and which made me understand mum a little bit more.

When mum was expecting my youngest sister, she was really scared of having to tell her mum. She confided in my aunt who shared with us, that mum was worried that nan would tell her off!

She thought that nan would say “you have 2 children already, when are you going to have time to carry out your sewa and the service of the sangat if you spend too much time raising a family?” – and this expectation and fear really worried mum. 

Anyway, when Nav was born in ’86, my nan came to visit and live with us for a while. It was this year that nan had seen what mum’s life in the UK was really like, how the family were, the sangat here, and her friends. And she was quite surprised!

Nan noticed that the house was really quite compared to the hustle and bustle of Saharanpur bhawan where she lived a congregation space of sangat every day, devotees visiting 2-3 times a day, and never a quiet moment, visiting homes of devotees to share in their joy and sorrow.

It was at this point that my nan had said that mum’s life needed a spirituality boost – now is time to start a ladies congregation. 

And so it was born. 

Out of my nan’s blessing, from our little home in Wolverhampton, following my little sister’s arrival into the world, that he ladies sangat started.

And 38 years later, it’s still going.

He’s finally talking.

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Sid has taken the loss of his daddima really hard.

He’s not much of a talker when it comes to what he is feeling but yesterday (Sunday 4th Feb) he took out the iPad and started to create a list for all of us to complete about mums qualities and funny moments.

Here’s what he writes

“when I’d have a sleepover with her, I’d always go right to the corner [of the bed] as it was hot in the bedroom so I could get out of bed if I felt too hot but she’d always pull me back into the middle of the bed and would say that it’s to dangerous in case I fell.

That constant sense of caring that she always had was amazing. I thought nothing could compare with her sewa but this almost beats it!”

He’s healing slowly. But he’s healing.

Gratitude Personified

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“…Shukar, shukar, shukar.. chullo, let’s go”

Gratitude.

This is what screams out to me from mums life. She was always so grateful for everything.

She never complained about not having enough, and made sure we didn’t grow up entitled. She took every thing as a blessing.

How she was raised, reflected in how she lived.

She saw the opportunity to serve, to give, and to be thankful for each moment.

There’s a beautiful video of mum where she gives us an insight into how she was raised in the beautiful little city of Saharanpur in India.

Losing her dad at the age of about 5/6 years old, and then being raised by a single mum in India with 2 other sisters, in an ultra conservative environment and very little resources to their disposal, I honestly have no idea how she survived, let alone thrived.

It made her who she was. It made her instil that within us. 

One of her favourite songs which I loved hearing her sing was “Kiddha karan me shukariya, dathaar there ehsaan da”, and it was a song that would go on to become part and parcel of her life. 

There is a line within this song

“Tu bakshi hai menu zindagi, meh kyu na kara teri bandagi?”

You have granted me this life, why would I not praise you?

Tu mareez raazi karditheh jithe nuskaa na chaleya lukmaan da”

You have healed where a doctors medicine has failed”

I remember when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2016/17, she kept saying that “don’t worry. There is still lots more to do, so much more service to give”. It was that purposeful giving that gave her motivation, energy, focus to remain healthy and keep giving.

If you ask me, it was during that year that mum had died and was then reborn into a new woman, with a renewed zeal and energy to give.

And it felt like we had a new mum!!

There was this one incident, that my niece Tania recalled;

While sat with Queen B for her first chemo, the nurse put the cannula in and started discussing the schedules for her treatment, initially the nurse said she would have the chemo at the end of the week, to which Queen B said “‘”would I feel the full side effects by Sunday though?”
To which the nurse replies “Yes”
So being the queen she is, aunty then said, could I have my chemo on Mondays instead so I have the week to recover and I can still do my sewa?

The nurse in me was like OMG but then my heart and soul realised just how pure she is and her soul breathed for selfless service, we did nimaskar to each other and did simran as the chemo commenced. In all my years of nursing I have never seen such courage and bravery in someone always wanting to give to everyone else.

Mum was the epitome of gratitude, and within that gratitude, the epitome of giving.

Being able to be like this is an art.

And she was the Da Vinci.

She rose above her physical experience, became the spiritual being, and just had the human experience.

Kya jeevan mum, kya bhagti…

A Matter of life and Death.

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“You have loved us to your last breath, we will love to ours.”

My last words to her, before she left us-

“Mum, you have lived this life beautifully, you are surrounded by all your family, filled with love here. You have loved us to your last breath, we will love to ours.

There are no complaints, none at all. We are so thankful for having such a wonderful mum like you. We will miss you every day, your quirkiness, your cooking, especially your aloo paranthas. We will never forget you.

Satguru Mata ji has come to collect you, mum, it’s time for you to go home.”

As I shared these words to my beloved, with all the family and her closest friends, I knew she would be ready to fly.

At about 7.45, mum, lying in her hospital bed, talking to me through her inner voice to me (we will come on to this later) asked me to let her go, and to go and bring the family in to say farewell.

She was breathing in what seemed to be quite an uncomfortable manner. Reassured by the nurses that this was not painful, we knew this was not going to be a happy ending.

Her voice, as clear to me as my own, was talking to me throughout the day, the 15th of December ‘23. A date etched into my heart forever, asking me to carry out her final wishes.

She asked me, at about 12pm, in this heart voice, to bring her 9 year old grandson, my baby boy, to say bye to her.

She kept telling me she wasn’t in pain, that she loved me, and that it was all going to be ok.

In the end, she wanted me to let her go.

To give her permission to leave.

7.47pm, I left the room, and as I closed the door behind me, her voice resounded in my being, asking me to bring the family in.

As I walked through the corridor, I met with the scattered family members and said, “Mum is ready to go and I feel she wants us all to come in and say by to her, as a united front (I think I meant to say family)”

I locked eyes with my teary eyed wife. As I did, she welled up more and said “If you’re really ready to let her go, then I will too” and as I broke down I just replied, “she’s ready to go.”

As we all entered into the room, my last words to her, became the last words she wanted me to say to her, and the only words she needed to relinquish the angelic body that carried her the last 65 years.

To give her my permission, her first born, my first love, permission to carry on this journey into eternal peace.

Nothing ever prepares you for this.

The trauma that ensues, the memory of her last breath, the moment of the intense tears, relief, anguish, pain, and love- all beyond comprehension.

There’s no pain like this. No emotion that comes close to a child losing his mother. It’s a raw, visceral, ache that doesn’t seem to have a real physical cause, so you can’t remove it from you. It’s root is in the love shared, that is now written in the pages of WhatsApp messages and texts.

I am both grateful, and heartbroken that I was tasked with this.

But to be able to fulfil it, only mum knows how she gave me the strength to complete it, as if she sat within me, and took control of the whole journey, in the same manner she took control of her life. With grace, beauty and the same selfless nature she served with.

Mum, you are loved beyond measure, missed beyond words. ❤️

It’s been a while…

So my wife and I finally managed to get away for a few days.!

We spent a week in the wonderful city of Mumbai in India without our 3 year old. 

Like many couples with young kids it’s off in a fighting battle to maintain some sense of balance in your relationship whilst managing a young child.

I think we were very grateful to have had a few days to ourselves to reconnect and just be us!
The city has such a beauty and vibrancy about it that I cannot explain, but my last visit in ‘94 when I was just 15 is still memorable and I can see why. 

We spent a few days in Chembur, a large district in central Mumbai and then moved on to Juhu Beach at the JW Marriott hotel – perhaps one of the most amazing hotels I’ve stayed in – ever. 

Needless to say, we both missed our son immensely, however we loved each minute of being together and exploring the beauty of this treasured city. 

When Sid met Sang…

10 days after Sang left for Mumbai, Sid gets reunited with his first love- his mummy. 

We landed in Dubai safe and sound and had a 2 hour wait before Sang’s flight landed. 

I’ve got to say, it was a longer wait than the 6 hour flight. 

Sid could tell he was going to see his mummy, he kept saying “mummy here” and “mummy plane”.

This is what happens when a son sees his mum after so many days…It was like love at first sight – again. I’ve never seen him so excited! He was jumping, spinning, laughing – he just couldn’t contain himself.   

 The beauty of a child’s love for his parents is beyond compare … 

For me, it was a gift just to be present in the moment and experience it. 

 
  And so ended 10 days of separation. And began a lovely holiday, the 3 musketeers back together again.