Page 60 of A Thousand Broken Pieces

Leo shut the door behind us, and it was the first time I had even looked at the others. Everyone was shaken and shocked.

“I haven’t seen a dead body before,” Dylan said shakily.

Travis was white as a ghost. He had. He had seen several. Dylan threw his arm around Travis. Jade and Lili followed Leo across the room to get some tea that the hotel had left out for us.

Kabir had come back with us too. He went with Leo and the girls. I held Savannah tightly in my arms. Her eyes were bloodshot, and tears wet her cheeks. I wiped the damp away and asked, “Are you doing better, baby?”

She nodded her head but then shook it no. “It reminded me of Poppy,” she said, her hands trembling in mine. She released a self-deprecating laugh. “I want to be a doctor for children with cancer and I can’t even face seeing a person who has passed.” She shook her head again. “Maybe I can’t do it after all.”

Mia appeared beside us. “It was your first time since your sister.” Mia looked across the room to Leo, who was walking back toward us with a tray of tea. “Let’s sit down,” Mia said. “We should discuss what we’ve seen and how it made us feel.” She then spoke to Kabir. “And it would be helpful if you could tell the group more about Varanasi and its relationship with death? It may help us all process it.”

Kabir nodded. “I would be honored.”

We sat down and Leo handed us all hot tea. I gulped it down immediately, trying to let the heat warm the iciness in my bones.

“How did seeing those processions make you feel?” Mia said and cast her eyes around the group.

“Sad,” Lili said. “Seeing their family members walking behind them. It made me really sad. It took me back to hearing about my mom and dad.”

“It made me remember that day …” Travis said. His head was bowed. “Not the good parts, the memories I had of my friends, but the bad part. Seeing them all after …”

Travis sniffed back his tears. Dylan placed his hand on his shoulder. I looked to Sav; her head was down, and her breathing was calmer but stillshallow. I felt trapped in my personal hell too. The hell of seeing Cill in the car, of feeling him, unmoving, in my arms.

When no one else offered to speak, Leo said, “Knowing about death, grieving for a loved one, and even seeing them after death can be traumatic.” The truth of those words was evident in all our slumped frames. “We remember that time above anything else, have it burned into our memories. When we think of the person we loved, most people conjure that image first.” Leo sighed. “But the truth is, death is all around us. We see it every day, though we may not realize it. We wander through trees in the fall, the leaves dying as they turn red, yellow, and brown and drift to the ground. We see animals pass, we display flowers in our homes, and dispense of them when they die.

“We feel it harder and deeper when it’s a loved one, of course. But death won’t be a onetime experience for any of us. We will experience grief several times in our lifetimes. See it in nature all year round, year after year. It will never go away.”

Mia nodded to Kabir. He sat forward in his seat. “It is my understanding that in the Western world, death is something that happens behind closed doors. It is more of a private affair.” He wasn’t judging; I could tell by his tone. “Here, especially in Varanasi, we celebrateallparts of life. Even death. For us, it is just another part of our journey we take as people. We live life in the open, and that means we see death in the open too.”

Goose bumps broke out over my body. Savannah’s head had lifted, and she was hanging on every word that Kabir said.

He pointed to Mia and Leo. “The purpose of bringing you all here, this city where life meets death, is to show you that death doesn’t have to be dreaded but can be seen as a celebratory rite of passage. And it can be treasured and sacred too.

“In the space of a couple of hours, we saw pilgrims bathing joyfully in the Ganges, washing away their sins. Then we saw loved ones taking their family members to be cremated and sent to heaven. We believe dying here breaks the cycle of reincarnation and sends our loved ones’ souls straight to nirvana. To us, that is something to be celebrated, not mourned.”

“We all believe different things about the afterlife,” Mia said. “Varanasi teaches us to embrace death in the same way we embrace life. I know thatmay seem like a difficult concept to accept. But this section of the trip is about facing our mortality. There is no place better to see that than this vibrant, magical city.”

“If I could, I would like to show you something,” Kabir said and checked with us all silently if that was okay. “It will mean going back outside.”

Savannah straightened, bracing herself against her attack of grief, but then took a deep inhale and nodded. I was so proud of the strength that was building within her. I could see Savannah climbing the mountain out of grief higher and higher, day by day. She was reaching the top. She was a damn revelation. She was petite in stature, but her strength was that of a Titan.

One thing was becoming clear—she was stronger than me.

“Okay?” I said, when we rose to our feet.

“Okay,” she said and squeezed my hand. Only once. “You?”

“Okay,” I hushed out. I was anything but. Mia and Leo hadn’t failed us yet. So, I would trust them. It had taken me many weeks so far to give over some control to them, but I could see what they were doing. And it had helped.

We followed Kabir back out into the maze of alleyways. In just ten minutes we saw another two processions. I held my breath when I saw them—I held Savannah too.

She was trembling, but she kept her chin up. And as the family passed, she bowed her head in respect and tears sprang to my eyes. I felt like I’d learned more about life from Savannah in a handful of weeks than any school in my life.

I bowed my head too. I hoped they had passed well. That it was peaceful and that nirvana truly did await them. What an image, to arrive at a place free of pain and judgment, one filled with love in all its forms. No sadness or troubles. Just peace and happiness. That thought made me feel warm with hope. Hope that it was true.

The sound of laughter came from around the corner, taking me from my thoughts. Kabir led us in that direction. When we arrived, it was to a kind of bakery/sweet shop. There were people dressed in white, laughing and eating,celebrating.

Kabir gestured his hand to the people. “They have just seen their lovedone cremated.” I frowned, unable to fathom that. I thought back to Cillian’s funeral, then his wake. I barely remembered it. There was lots of crying from my mom and dad. From my other family. There were lots of strained silences, numbness, and dread.

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