RIP S.K. Harihareswara

[brainwane]

My father died on Thursday night of a massive heart attack. He'd just had dinner and was washing his hands when he slumped against the wall. He died very quickly in my mother's arms. He was 74.

I'm in India now, alternately engaging with and hiding from the constant flow of people and food and emotion. I saw his corpse yesterday. Tomorrow we'll start going to orphanages and retirement homes to feed people in memory of my dad. That's what he wanted in lieu of the standard prayer rituals.

In the coming weeks and months I expect I'll write a lot about my family. Right now I just wanted to tell you what's up. Your condolences are welcome in comments, emails, or instant messages. But I especially encourage you to comment with happy memories of your own family -- or, if you have none of those or none that you want to share, happy memories of any sort.

(cross-posted from my blog)

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

Oh no, Sumana. I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope that being with your extended family is helpful.

Random happy family memory: when V came on TV (the original one in the '80s), my older brother convinced my younger brother & I that we had to dress up to disguise ourselves from the aliens (that would apparently see us if we had them on our TV screen?). So I remember shoving pillows up my shirt & putting weird things on my face & other random things so that the aliens wouldn't get us. Hahahaha.