Thank you …. thank you …. thank you.
Friends, yes guests who have always become friends and all our other worldwide friends have been wonderful supporting me through email, messages, likes, you name it.
I’ve been in London less than a week, managed a days work, granddaughter sitting and met up for wonderful support from four different sets of guests. Amazing!
OK we’re English so invariably beer is involved.
It’s eight weeks now. I’m in London and carrying with me a photograph of my beautiful Manjula.
We don’t have access to Mysore Market and it’s wonderful selection of beautiful fragrant flowers.
Manjula did however love receiving roses and the local Sainsbury’s has obliged.
Manjula is, of course, in my thoughts, every single minute but I also especially remember her by placing her photo somewhere prominent and displaying flowers on the monthly anniversary of that Saturday morning when she died.
A letter to my Granddaughter Poppy.
I’m staying with her and her mum and dad.
It’s her dad Ben’s birthday.
This morning on waking Poppy gave me sweets and asked if Manjula liked them and if we could telephone her.
So she doesn’t know about what’s happened, or maybe she does and she’s looking to me for further explanation and understanding, hence this letter to be read out….. to her, which I’ve just done after supper
Manjula has died.
When people’s bodies become tired and can’t manage anymore they stop working, they die. Usually it’s when they are older, sometimes when they are younger.
It’s OK to be sad, to miss her and to cry. I do a lot of the tIme. She’s still with us in our hearts and in our minds.
We don’t know what happens to their spirit when someone dies because it’s not happened to us yet. Most of us believe part of us, usually called our spirit carries on.
Manjula (and I and lots of people in India) believe that part of us carries on and usually comes back and lives within another body. So that would mean we never really die, nobody really knows.
In India when someone’s body stops working it’s cremated and the funeral ceremonies are about helping her spirit move on….
Some people think that afterwards they hang around in a beautiful place, like a valley, where they sing, dance and have great fun.
Some believe we’ll catch up with each other again, hold hands continue to be friends and carry on.
Some people believe that butterflies or dragonflies are messengers or they find some other way to pass a message back to their loved ones.
I know Manjula’s spirit is still alive – where exactly I don’t know – maybe waiting for me, maybe waiting to be the spirit once she finds another body.
We know she was loved and gave love and we can’t ask for anything more we still love and miss her.
I know she had a happy life when we were together, she was a very good person, looked after others wherever and whenever she could. I think and believe our spirits will meet again somewhere in the future.
So it’s sad because we miss Manjula but it’s also happy because she’s left us with wonderful memories, she’s still in our hearts and her spirit lives on.
Follow this link for picture book suggestions.
Emotional titbit
I’ve avoided going to our local hotel for a parcel (take out).
During Manjula’s last few months when unable to cook, her friend Sudha would bring a home cooked meal for her each day. I’d get a parcel from Dose Corner. So it’s a firm memory.
Well it’s been seven weeks now so I forced myself go fetch a meal and help move on.
Its a great meal and costs just 110 rs
It’s maybe not surprising but even something as simple as getting the meal is very emotional with tears welling up.
I’m slowly shifting towards happier memories. Last night I put together first stages of the photo book. I’ve been avoiding it.
It was really therapeutic. Not straightforward but really nice to do.
Moving on… with Manjula with me.
You have my sympathies.
I’ve posted what must seem a constant stream of feelings. It also can’t be easy to find your way around the many postings.
It reminds me of an interview I gave to a journalist in the UK, years ago. I was working on an innovative approach to engage local communities in helping guide local public services to be more responsive to their needs. After I’d explained my approach. He said, so you launch a whole series of custard pies some hit and some even stick While some fall by the wayside.
I’m beginning to think meandmycycle.com is not dissimilar. A series of disconnected postings ranging from the bizarre, mildly interesting and hopefully a fair few that connect to you.
I’m working on that same theory. Randomly works, sometimes.
Thank you for sticking with it and me.
But I think I need to get a bit better organised and the blog more focussed.
So over the next few weeks I’ll start to focus on:
Our story, with two separate parts Manjula’s amazing story (I’m not biased, the more interesting by far) and Stephen’s
There will also be insights into this amazing country….
Life in India
and some bits a pieces:
Titbits a sort of hotch potch
Clearly labelled (yeh!)
I’ll use feedback to review, amend and revise.
So please….. As always, comments are appreciated and feedback on what works for you and suggestions of how I can improve would be great.
Thanks for your invaluable support.
You’d think that after almost four years of Manjula and my experiences of the ill health industry, that would have been enough.
Well no, clearly not. I’ve had a battery of check up tests including an ECG with a little irregularity spotted, so move one step forward to ECHO.
Result is ….. high blood pressure has resulted in slightly enlargement means watch diet, do exercise and monitor blood pressure. At or over 140 on a regular basis go see the Doctor.
I had, of course, to make my stale joke about there not being any stress in my life. 🙃
one of the directors is absent without leave.
Mycycle tours and travels Pvt ltd was set up to ensure a secure income, home etc for Manjula but now it’s not needed in quite that way.
As we’ve decided to continue two good friends, Manjula’s adopted sister Tanuja and brother Satish have stepped into the breach to become new directors.
We’re at the accountants having provided: national identity card, PAN (tax) card, bank account details, 3 x ID photos and then been videoed online to prove who they are! It’s not straightforward to put it mildly.
so here we are, the new team, continuing in Manjula and MyCycles good name.
I’ve had a bit of a wobble over the past few days. (Nothing surprising there, at the best of times).
With the invaluable and repeated help of Tom and Ann and of course my support hammock of friends (including Amy, Sue, Dave and you) around the world. I’ve reached a certain stage.
Clap of Thunder just came to Mysore nicely timed to emphasise.
I know it’s not absolute and there maybe some wavering or even three steps back in the board game of life.
Fact is I’ve been haunted by that final instruction to the Doctors to ‘let her go’ and not resuscitate Manjula after her second heart attack.
There is no way of knowing, there is no ‘best’ or ‘if only’. I did what I could do in the circumstances, in line with Manjula’s wishes to stop any further suffering, there was no choice really. She was very poorly, lost a lot of weight and was unable to fight anymore.
Intellectually that’s it, no argument, sort of accepted. Emotionally I continue to bounce around on the roller coaster.
Thank you for your support in this impossible situation.
Life continues in the midst of my own private chaos
These workers can be found outside jewellers shops throughout India
In a few minutes he’d rethreaded my Tibetan bracelet which was showing signs that it might break soon.
I have most definitely nearly stopped buying things for the house. Manjula would complain that there was no room left for any more, usually paintings.
I did however have to nab this box and the guy beside them on the pavement made a new key to fit the lock.
A further selection of photos of workers can be found here
Here’s men in action on the main road near our home.
Health and what?
Manjula had a most beautiful smile that many have said lit up the room and left a presence in their heart.
A smile brings us together and Manjula most definitely brought people together, crossed social, class, cultural caste and international boundaries and made connections. Just one of her astonishing attributes. (There’s that Farrell bias again 🙂)
“Care granted to the sick, welcome offered to the banished, forgiveness itself are worth nothing without a smile enlightening the deed. We communicate in a smile beyond languages, classes, and parties. We are faithful members of the same church, you with your customs, I with mine.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I know this of Manjula, she beamed her smile, passed on her warmth, lit up our way regardless of the toll her gattling gun of illnesses was making on her poor depleted body. To her very last she squeezed out a giggle and a smile.
Thank you to Janie for this wonderful portrait.
Me and MYCycle 