Jocelyn stared at the chrysanthemums that had only recently bloomed in the garden outside her window and reached for her handkerchief. Vignettes flashed across her mind’s eye. The gentle caress of her lover in bed. That Kalakhatta Gola excitedly shared in a Bandra bylane.
Only a couple of months ago, she had tied the knot with a boy who had swept her off her feet, in a quaint Bandra church. She was 31. He was a day older. A week into their marriage, Jason Francis jumped from the Sea Link Bridge. In a note he left, he claimed the blame was solely his to bear. For a business that had vanished overnight. Just like their marriage.
Tomorrow was her birthday. The day after was his. There would be no celebrating either.
How could the darned chrysanthemums bloom, amidst all her grief? At the funeral, an inconsolable Jocelyn fell into the outstretched arms of Jason’s best friend, Keenan.
“What do I do, Keenan?” she cried. As though imploring him to somehow magically fix things.
Jocelyn’s mum had stayed with her for a month after Jason’s death. Her daughter resembled the hapless infant she had nurtured all those years ago. Slowly, sadness turned into something worse. Anger. “How could he do this to me?” Jocelyn yelled one morning at breakfast, smashing her coffee mug to smithereens.
She had only recently found solace in being numb
Carolyn Lobo feared her daughter might end up taking her life, too. Until Jocelyn snapped while playing cards one day, screaming: “If he expects me to follow his cowardly path, he’s sorely mistaken, that b*stard!”
“But when the bloody hell are you going to move on?” Carolyn shrieked, regretting it almost instantly. Jocelyn simply got up and walked to her room. Buried her head in a pillow. Not to cry. She had only recently found solace in being numb.
The sky falls. But there are other skies behind it. You just can’t see it at the time.
— Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, Loss
After six months, Jocelyn resumed work at the small ad agency in Lower Parel that was gracious enough to take her back. One night, she found herself accepting a longstanding “let’s catch up over drinks” invite.
A couple cocktails in, her best friend asked, “Why don‘t you try therapy, girl?”. Well-rehearsed, no doubt. Her friends braced for an explosion. Jocelyn merely stared at her drink. Her eyes spoke of a different sort of death. Numb was no longer beautiful.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this’
When dealing with loss, sadness often makes way for anger, which culminates into numbness Pixabay
After a year had passed, Jocelyn started laughing again. On Christmas Eve, she accepted a coffee invitation from Keenan. It had taken all of her to say “okay”. The strange part was, she was not sure what the invite even meant. Was it a date? What would people think? That she might be going out with her dead husband’s best friend? Banishing the thought, she got into her car and drove, as though on impulse, to the Starbucks on Carter Road. Jason’s favourite haunt.
Keenan embraced her with a bear hug. They ordered their coffees — an Americano for him, Mocha for her. An Egg White Croissant to share. They gazed at the Arabian Sea amidst snippets of conversation. Then, out of nowhere, Keenan sputtered: “I’ve been meaning to tell you this a long time now, Jocelyn. I really like you. I always have.”
Right then, as though Keenan had touched a spot in her she believed no longer existed, Jocelyn broke down. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” she bawled, tears streaming down her cheeks. Then she got up and ran to her car. Cried on the steering wheel, before mustering the courage to drive back home.
What does “like” even mean? She thought at home that night. Jason “loved” me. What the bloody hell does Keenan think? Does he think he can replace “my Jason”? At the very thought of “my Jason”, she burst into tears again.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, Klara and the Sun, has as its protagonist an AF (“Artificial Friend”), a robot assigned the task of potentially continuing the life force belonging to Josie, a terminally ill child. The endearing Klara says, at the end, that no matter how perfectly she might have mastered Josie’s nuances of behaviour, she would never quite be able to serve as her replacement. She would never be what Josie was, in the hearts of the people close to her. As though love bequeaths another life to people, in the hearts of those that love them.
Keenan could never be another Jason
No two loves are the same Pixabay
Ten years had passed since Jason’s death. Jocelyn drove to the cemetery as usual, and placed flowers on Jason’s tombstone. Fresh white chrysanthemums. Sadness, anger, numbness — these had long since gone. She walked back to her car and drove home. Rang the bell.
“Mama! See the new game I downloaded.” The sheer exuberance of a seven-year-old.
She burst into a laugh, and followed her son into his room. She had married Keenan a year after they had met for coffee. Eight years ago to this day, she had left that coffee house crying. The next day had been one of the darkest Christmases ever. Keenan was returning from a work trip tomorrow.
The next morning, Jocelyn was at her window, soaking in the beauty of the verdant garden. The chrysanthemums were long gone. In their place were resplendent red roses she had planted herself. She took a moment to reflect on how far she had come. What started it all.
It was right after that thought had passed, of Keenan trying to somehow replace Jason. Something had sparked in her then. Keenan could never be another Jason. Just like Klara, the robot in Ishiguro’s haunting tale, could never become the human she was not.
Jason would always hold a special place in Jocelyn’s heart. Keenan could not, and would not, replace him. That was when she had picked up the phone and called Keenan.
It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear
— Leonard Cohen
All that we must do is love. She thought of how beautiful those chrysanthemums had been.
And now, there were roses.
Rohit Trilokekar is a novelist from Mumbai who flirts with the idea of what it means to love. His heart’s compass swerves ever so often towards Kolkata, the city he believes has the most discerning literary audience.
