I think maybe the Gurupornima festival at Prasanthi was a call for us to come home. I am still pretty frail and getting more and more forgetful every day but so what.
The last days of my being in India were a constant worry. I was afraid that I would have a stroke or get Alzheimer and have no one to take care of me. I think that worry ruined my life and brought me to the states. Now that I'm home I realize that I don't have anyone to take care of me here either. I dumped myself on my aged sister even though I had TB. Honestly I didn't believe that I had TB but I did. Now I don't any more. In five days my TB case will be closed at the county health department. And I think it's time for me to really go home.
Swami has given me everything here even health care. There is a Wellness Clinic here in this building. But I'm alone. I never really made friends with the residents because we don't have anything in common. I remember when I first got a job in Los Angeles in the early sixties, I couldn't sit and talk to the other ladies there in the office. They discussed their children and cooking and their husbands and I was and am a single woman. The residents here sit in the back of the building, smoke and talk about their grandchildren. I go out to my sisters house and she talks about her children and grandchildren.
So if I go back to India the ladies who sit in 'second arch' will also discuss their families. I want to talk about God. I prefer to discuss 'the reality' I would like my mind to be on Swami. Its really better not to talk at all but here I watch TV. Why do I watch TV when for 30 years in India I didn't even have a television set? Because it masks the pain, the dull ache I've been living with since I left India. It hasn't left me for even a secant. Why haven't I gone back like everyone else. I think maybe leaving India simply defeated me. I don't have the courage to face anything anymore so I just hide here in this safe place thinking about myself and doing these blogs.
Maybe I'll pull myself together now and try to go home. Trouble is I've forgotten how to be happy. I know that my precious Lord wants me to be happy. He has shone that to me a hundred times. But I think it may take a little bit of happiness to reach for happiness. I have no courage. I don't know if I could get a visa. The Indian government kicked me in the stomach and I caved in. That was a good speech the fellow from Bombay gave on Gurupornima. Can't remember exactly why it seemed to help me but it did. Maybe today I'll contact Houston about a visa.
If I go back will I be any safer? I don't think so but I do know that Swami will take care as He always has, I should have known that. I'm 76 now and things will not get easier from now on. But I know that He will guard and guide me for the rest of my life no matter where I am. So why don't I stay here in Florida where I'm safe and He has given me such a great place to live? Even though I know He is in me and beside me and above me, I feel this terrible loneliness being away from India. It goes beyond words and chitchat. The ladies there in 'second arch' never discuss the reality either but still I feel that He may be calling me home now. Dear God how I wish I could reallygo home.
We all want to return home! Problem is, times change and 'home' may not be as we remember. We remember our childhood, but will that carefree time every come again? Sometimes I remember delicious treats from my childhood but when I buy them now, they don't taste as I remember them at all! They are ucky! Likewise, the Parthi that we knew is no more. So many have left, and so many there now don't come regularly to the bhajan sessions. When they do, many have long faces, though they try to say all is the same because Swami is not the form. As you said, you have good health care there. Is there anyone who will really look after us in India? No. Even the General Hospital will send us foreigners to Bangalore if they fear something serious. The best way to feel happy and fulfilled is to find an all-consuming interest or passion, and to see the Lord in that. Easier said than done, but good luck to us!
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