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Anish Wig
Is someone’s wealth measured by money or the love and blessings showered on her through the numerous lives she touched?
When almost a thousand people show up for your funeral, it’s perhaps the latter. My mom, Dr Veena Wig, was no public figure or celebrity, but she was a rich woman indeed.
As my childhood memories flash by, the birthday parties spent in museums and art galleries with mom in Chandigarh, growing up, recognising Monets from Manets, the masters of impressionism, or the Hussains from the Razas and the subtleties of art, I appreciate them all the more today.
Recently, I was brought to tears watching the funeral ceremony of the great Muhammed Ali. He was a fellow fighter of Parkinson’s disease who never let the illness obstruct his cause and social work. Mom was a graceful and a glorious fighter who lived life on her own terms with a defining elegance in all she did — and, as Ali always said, “The service you do to others is the rent you pay for your room on earth.”
“I am not fighting cancer, cancer has to fight me first,” she proclaimed with poise and calm last year when she discovered she had it. The next nine months went by quickly for us all, celebrating life and reminiscing the joyous years.
I saw shades of Ali in my mom with her meticulous planning, wanting to put the family to minimum of inconvenience, and came to tears when it was revealed that she had planned what clothes should adorn her beautiful body for her funeral, even selecting matching clothes for my brother and myself.
When I met her for the last time in early December, 2015, she told me, “I have a strange sense of peace and calmness that makes me smile.” I smiled back reassuringly with her as we both fought back the tears.
It was last Christmas when I got a call that mom was in the hospital. I rushed to take flights and trains from halfway across the world to be by her side. But alas, I was 20 minutes late. She lives among us today, as a guiding light in our lives.
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