I’ve felt quite alone in my grief over the passing of Rati Bartholomew. I was in Dubai, visiting my family, when I read the news on her son, Pablo’s Facebook page. I felt a jolt run through my body. I had always imagined I would be there to say good bye when she passed over. All I could do was call Pablo and offer my condolences. “You knew her,” he told me. Indeed I did, and uniquely so, since after the stroke that had left one side of her body paralysed, she had chosen a life of relative reclusion. She lived in Gurugram, under the care of Pablo’s brother, Robin and sister-in-law, Shallay. I met her at the inception of my relationship with Pablo, back in September 2008. It was an odd thing to be taken to meet someone’s mother. She and I hit it off instantly. She was excited to know I was a writer. She offered me an effusive warmth which she only pretended to withdraw on occasions when there were great lapses in my meetings with her, if I had let too much time gather between our visits. 

Since I heard the news I have been struggling to reconstruct our shared memories. I was among few people from the world outside her immediate family that she allowed into her everyday mundane. I was always aware it was a gift… she was trusting me with her fragility, letting me in on her body’s frailty and its resilience. Our bond grew in sacredness because I was always patient with her as she framed her sentences, her speech irrevocably affected by the stroke. She had moments of relative lucidity, when she strung coherent words, and, more frequently, moments of aphasia, when formulating sentences felt challenging. Through our conversations I learned to listen better, to offer her time and the confidence to begin or complete a thought, to speak slowly but never in any manner that belittled her intelligence or made her seem disabled. Our intimacy grew to the point that when I arrived with Pablo to see her, he and I would play a little game. He would make me wait outside, in the corridor, while he entered her room alone. She would express happiness at seeing him, but would immediately ask for me. Pablo would make some excuse for my alleged absence, which was my cue to enter. Her face would subsequently light up. I would kiss her soft, freckled cheeks and she would clasp my hands. If I hadn’t come to see her in a long time she would play a game with me, where she snubbed me for a few minutes until I had appeased her with my apologetic kisses. I often went alone to see her. We would have lunch together and spend the afternoon in each other’s company. It was so easy for us to simply be in each other’s presence without feeling the need to fill the silences.