I don't really know how to draft this email and I hate the fact this is a mass email but right now my life leaves me with few options.
Please be patient with this email, my mind is a bit in ruins...I had been sick for a few days in the village since I came back from New Delhi and consequently feeling a bit unsettled as I have been watching my family in the village work endless hours harvesting and I was questioning whether what I am doing is very honorable or meaningful or anything.....
Yesterday I went to Behror, our neighboring town, in order to check my email (which I never do there because the connection is awful and expensive) but I had some arrangments to make for trip at the end of the April to an ashram that is a rehabiltation center for children freed from the carpet loom slavery.
I checked my email to find that my best friend from my first years of college, Dave Mathis, was killed in a car accident with his new wife Mary Kay-- only a week after his wedding.
I also learned that one of my favorite professors from college, my mentor, my inspiration, Professor Obler also passed away after blood complications.After rewinding through a history of my college, replaying all the millions of memories in my head, I have been trying to cope with this tragedy from so far away, away from anything remotely familiar, and away from any means to be alone and mourn........To contact the family, to contact anyone...I feel so powerless, so helpless.
I have come to Delhi, in hopes of tomorrow going to an ashram in the mountains to deal with my emotions. This of course is also problematic, as India continues to be told to me by my family and others as an unsafe place for two women to travel. The villagers don't really seem to comprehend these types of emotions or the idea that life does not just pick up and move on as normal...And I do, at each turn of the road, wherever hardship faces me, I pick up and move on, but this time I need some time, this is not my tragedy this is his, and I need time to cry.
I love you all and please keep in touch.And for anyone of you that got to know Dave, if you met him, were fortunate to have a friendship with him, I am also very sorry.
Love Reena
Dear Friends and Family,
I am writing you from high up in the mountains of India, I am currently in Nanital -- where my mother went for boarding school, and although the scenery is gorgeous and there is a comforting silence in the mountains and on the lake --- my heart still hurts and I am still feeling rather unhappy.
I have been on an emotional rollercoaster --- after receiving the news that my best friend from my first years of college Dave Mathis died in a tragic car accident and one of my favorite professors, my mentor and inspiration Professor Obler also passed away. I have been journeying through India. I spent one night in a very austere traditoinal ashram here in India after 8 hours in a car from Delhi driving into the mountians, with my friend Caroline, my grandfather and my granduncle. I slept on wooden planks in a dimly litted room, was only offered one meal, and no chai. I met with the babaji and participated in Puja at sundown and woke up at 4 in the morning, bathed and did puja after sunrise.
After that, we drove to a place incredibly remote out in the mountains to another ashram, which was more of "resort" feeling and there were many foreigners (something i am not at all accustomed to and took my mind for a loop). I participated in arthi (singing prayers) and used a day of silence to sleep (when I am in emotional overdrive, I shut down) and to write nearly forty pages in my diary.
I am coping, the silence was very healthy, but in Dave's memory I ache to be in chapel Hill, surrounded my familiar places that remind me of the time we spent together. I long to be with my friends and family -- as no one ever does, i never expected someone I was so close to coudl vanish from existence.
I am homesick and the worst part is admitting that I feel defeated. I am prepared to spend another three months in the village, but I know that especially with the heat, it will be a far greater challenge than I anticipated. Please write me, I am scared to be so far away from everyone I care about, write me whatever mundane details about your life, let me know your alive and well and that you get a chance ot read my emails and I am still a part of your life. I am composed, my past hardships and my current enviornment keep me from wallowing in despair or misery. My mind now become's my worst enemy. I love you all and please be in touch,
Love Reena
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