India: Something Huge Will Be Missing If I Ever Get There

After our “road trip” odyssey, we’re settled in here for the week in Fernandina Beach. My Dad had been to Florida only once before, back in 1985, to settle my late grandmother’s estate (after she had died in Hudson, near Tampa). Now here for our holiday, he is thoroughly enjoying himself – which was our goal after he nearly died of heart failure back in August.

View down the beach on Amelia Island, yesterday morning, around 10 am. [Photo by me, 2015.]

View out from Amelia Island, yesterday morning, about 10 am. [Photo by me, 2015.]

One of my now bigger regrets – one never to be remedied – is when our friend Kam (the London-born and raised daughter of Sikh immigrants to the U.K., and who died suddenly at age 45 in February 2014) remarked a year or so before her death that she had wanted to visit India with us.

We’d had a laugh due to her initial phrasing. She’d said she wanted to visit it with me, and then corrected herself. “Oh, I’m invited too?” my wife chuckled.

We had thought – typically complacently – that there would be time.

But she had never told us just how ill she truly was. (Maybe she didn’t even know herself at that point?) A terrible expression in life is “should’ve.” Had she expressed any degree of urgency, we’d have discarded everything else to have made sure we took that trip with her.

Holiday reading.

I suppose if I ever do visit India, she’ll be in my thoughts much of the time.

Don’t play down serious illness, or try to hide it, from those you love. Trust me, you aren’t sparing them. You may well cause them heartache forever.

That isn’t meant to be a downer post, really. It’s just a cautionary and necessary reminder; the sort of thing we all need to remember in life and are apt so easily to forget. Have a good day, wherever you are in the world. 🙂