A moment

Once I stood on the bank, watched in silence with my dad who was equally silent. It was a clear day, with wind almost too shy to blow, and a calm bay that lay lazily beneath our feet. Into the distance spread a pristine stretch of blue, light at first, then gently fading into a darker shade further out to sea. Clumps of cotton-like clouds floated overhead, soft decor for the sky that fused into one with the water on the horizon. The mountain ridges, partly scarred and blemished rough, partly smooth, lush, and green with grass, soared above the water's surface. Far, far away, a lonely little island rested, unwavering, small and lost in the big, big ocean surrounding it.

We stood and admired the sky, the land and the sea. I imagined those sailors who came across this scene long, long ago, and was closer to understanding why they called it the "Beautiful Island". I broke the silence, and simply said, "How beautiful this is". My dad nodded in agreement.

As the car skirted the coast, I looked at that same sea, caught in that muddle between the present and the past, feeling estranged and yet somewhat familiar too. Barely six hours hours earlier, my plane had flown past these very shorelines. It is all the same sea, but at different times, under very different circumstances. Whereas the sea and this landscape is for me but a beautiful memory of shared and treasured moments in the past, for almost a year now dad watches these waters and the mountains day and night. This is where he would have most wanted to rest, we think.

I stood before dad's memorial, and put my palms before my chest in prayer. A monk chanted lowly, Buddhist music chimed, and the scent of incense filled my eyes and nostrils. A solemn moment, one I had tried to imagine over the past few weeks and months, and had finally come. I cannot describe that feeling then... that feeling which is a blend of longing, of sadness and loss, yet at the same time struck and awed by the feeling of serendipity, comfort and gratitude.

Somehow, despite being spread thinly over different countries, different continents, and in different realms of existence, our family had come together once again.