Grace and Grief

 I remember the day I took my daughter to a double feature. We were going to see "A Wrinkle in Time" and "Black Panther" back to back. I had been trying to get my daughter to watch superhero movies and somehow she was never drawn to them. When I walked into the theater I assumed she would love Wrinkle, a book she and I read together when she was 7 and maybe not enjoy Panther. It turned out to be the opposite! She found the colorful world of  Wrinkle in the movie not jive with her mental image of the world from the book. On the other hand, she fell in love with Black Panther. There was something about the movie that appealed to her and since then we watched the 20 odd Avenger movies and she still ranks Black Panther as her favorite. The movie brought joy to billions and we were no exceptions. You didn't have to be black to appreciate what a force for good that movie was. Believe me, I have seen Indiana Jones Temple of Doom and know a thing or two about stereotypes in Hollywood. But Panther arguably did more than even Henry Louis Gates Jr's brilliant documentary on Africa to challenge Eurocentric (which is inevitably white-centric) views of the world. So, the death of Chadwick Boseman came as a shock to me like it did for the world. But I was unprepared for the intensity to which it would affect me.

I don't know why the death of Chadwick Boseman has hit me hard. I am a cancer-hardened veteran who has lost my dad, two uncles, one of my closest cousins, a couple of friends and more relatives to cancer in the span of 17 years. But this one felt as personal as the deaths in my family. Maybe it was just this man's gentle, lightning smile. Maybe it was his grace and dignity that we saw on and off screen but is now 100X magnified knowing that all that grace was despite facing something as horrendous as cancer. Maybe it was the premium he put on his privacy. But him going through his treatments and still showing up to the sets to bring joy to the world as Black Panther transcends greatness. 

 

Till date, I had only my dad as a model for grace in the face of an uphill struggle against cancer.  He was funny, joking and making light of his struggles, thoughtful about his caregivers and the nurses in his hospice till the very end. But in a few rare moments he confessed to me that he was tired of fighting and wanted the end to be quick and made me promise to not put him on life support in case he went into a coma. Cancer can do that to you. Somehow Boseman's death brought back all those intense feelings.

 

17 years back just after my dad died I found comfort in Rainier NP under the gaze of the mountain. I had not shed any tears in India as I had to make room for my mom's grief and also had to handle the funeral. It was in Rainier amidst the wilderness, in that solitude,  that I finally found the space to come to terms with my own grief. I was in Sequoia NP when I found out about Boseman's passing and standing under those trees I sought comfort and saw his spirit in those giants.Very often when people die we collectively remember only their good things. In my dad's case I knew that was all there was to remember. He was 59 when he passed. In my mind he is always the Atticus of Mocking Bird and never the old, cynical,  grumpy Atticus of Go Set a Watchman as he never reached that age and I believe his basic nature wouldn't have changed much. I have a feeling Boseman was like that. The goodness that people attribute to him is not simply a case of remembering only the good. It feels like that was the sum total of his soul. May he rest in peace.