In the blink of an eye Greg Saunders watched his ex-wife remarry.
In that moment, that split second, he thought about killing himself.
He saw himself sitting on his second-hand couch, smoking his last cigarette, taking a shot of Jameson’s and then putting a bullet through his head... but then he thought he could live. That he could take that pack of cigarettes in his pocket and throw it in the trash. That he could go home and get rid of the damp second-hand couch.
That he could change.
Mr. Saunders wouldn’t have known it then, but if you asked him now he would say that was the moment he woke up. Woke up from playing a victim, woke up from caring about how “right” he was and how wrong everyone around him was. Woke up from his egotistical slumber.
As his ex-wife kissed her new husband, Greg Saunders also started a new beginning. Yes a single tear, maybe a few more, did roll off his face as the woman he called the love of his life walked down the aisle with what she called her soulmate.
He thought how Love has so many other words to describe it, but when you get down to it, Love is the only word that matters.
So the love of his life with her soulmate in hand jumped into a 1969 Corvette and rode off into a nearly perfect day in a completely perfect moment.
Greg Saunders smiled, threw his cigarettes in the trash and began to walk with new purpose.
Perfection had found him that day too.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
In the Toronto Airport
In the Toronto airport, while waiting for my flight back home, I struck up a conversation with an Indian man in his 60s. He was on his way back to Calgary from India. Excited by this, I told him that I too was coming home from India. I casually asked him what he was doing in India. He told me he was in Amritsar (Punjab) with his wife because his niece was getting married. He had to come back earlier for work (he runs his own pharmacy), but his wife was staying a few weeks longer.
My family loves her, she is the eldest so everyone listens to her. She is very loving and giving.” He smiled with joy after the comment. I gave a little smirk.
“How about you? Why were you in India? Getting married?” Insert awkward laugh from me.
Then, and I don’t know why, I lied.
I told him that I actually was going to move to India for work, but that I am in love with a woman in Vancouver and that I am going back to ask her to marry me. A romantic lie yes, however what he told me next was a little crazy.
“Sounds familiar,” he said.
“Oh really? You know someone?”
“Me,” he said.
Honestly, I was not prepared for that answer. He told me that many years ago he went chasing after a young lady in Vancouver. She was white. He told me that after he finished school his family thought it best for him to come to Canada because of the better opportunity at the time.
“It was the ‘70s, so basically the thinking was I would make more money and help the rest of the family,” he told me -- which is a very common story of that time.
So he came to Canada to become a pharmacist and that’s where they met.
“Her name was Michelle, Michelle LeClair.” He went on: “Her family was originally from Quebec, but her parents moved to Calgary.” Her father worked in oil.
They met during school orientation. “She thought my accent was funny; I told her it was attractive,” he joked.
Slowly and secretly they started to see each other and fell in love. “Like all young people do,” he grinned. Trust me this guy was like an old Indian Paul Newman or how I would envision an old Indian Paul Newman to be.
They dated for almost two years and then midway through university she switched schools and moved to Vancouver -- something about UBC being better for her career.
Of course, he was heartbroken.
Of course, I was sitting next to this man thinking about how my lie got him telling me his love story, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was supposed to hear it.
“That summer I felt like I was in one of those Bollywood love stories, very sad, and listening to sad Bollywood songs,” he said.
“What did you do?” I asked, like a five-year-old.
“I jumped on a bus and went to Vancouver!”
The scene started to form in my head. I could see this handsome Indian man sitting on a bus with a flannel shirt and bell bottoms while Love Somebody by the Bee Gees played in the background.
“I went to the UBC and started looking for her. I had not seen her in months so I was very excited! Finally I see her in the cafeteria.”
My heart was screaming about this romantic movie moment.
Then he said: “I go to her and she is surprised to see me but very happy, and in that moment I don’t know what came over me, but I ask her to marry me.”
“Young love can make us crazy!” he added. I was sitting at the edge of my seat waiting for him to finish.
“We walked outside and talked and she said that we couldn’t get married because we are from different cultures and her parents would never accept me and that it was best if I go back to Calgary.”
Crushed.
Here I was starting to think that his wife in India is a woman named Michelle. That two people could look past what makes them different and saw how similar they were. That they fell in love and that’s all that mattered.
But no. He jumped back on a bus the next day and came back to Calgary, heartbroken. He told me he finished school, went back to India, got married to his wife Kiran, had kids, and lives a very wonderful life.
“So I hope she says yes to you,” he joked, while I laughed awkwardly, feeling bad that I lied and feeling bad that there was no happy ending.
“So tell me her na—“
“That’s such a sad story!”
Yes he did ask her name, and yes I did talk over him.
“Not entirely,” he said, “I wouldn’t have met my wife if she would have said yes.”
I gave him a half-hearted smile and after a few silent moments he told me what I think is the best part of the story.
“About two years ago, I went to a wedding in Vancouver. A friend’s son was getting married to a white girl... And guess who her mother was?”
“Michelle?” I sounded like a teenage girl.
He nodded yes and my heart exploded. He told me that he went up to her, spoke to her and asked her about life. She said that she finished school and became a teacher, met a very good man and had three kids; her daughter who was getting married was the middle child. After a little more banter he finally asked her: “How did you let her daughter marry an Indian?”
She told him that one day there was a knock at her door, and when she opened the door she saw a young Indian man standing there.
“But all I could see was you,” she told him.
The boy had come to ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage.
“She told me that she never met him before because her daughter thought her husband and her would not approve, and her daughter ended the relationship months before. She believed it wouldn’t work because they have different backgrounds.”
He went on: “She said that when he asked her all she could say was yes, because she wanted her daughter to be happy with whomever she chose to be with.”
He was very happy to hear that and he told me that as she was about to leave, she turned to him and told him that although her husband was a wonderful man, he was too. He grinned at me and my heart went wild!
After a few pleasantries Sagar left to catch his flight.
I sat there thinking about what I just heard. Ideas like the laws of Karma and lessons we must learn kept going through my head. I thought that Sagar loved Michelle, but their love story was a lesson for Michelle, who thought that they couldn’t work; that you have to try and give your all in love, because our failures in love can be our or someone else’s lesson; that all stories of love, no matter what ending they may seem to have, will give birth to other love stories, and because of that there will always be a happy ending in our future.
But most of all I thought I gotta get back to Vancouver to marry a woman. ;)
My family loves her, she is the eldest so everyone listens to her. She is very loving and giving.” He smiled with joy after the comment. I gave a little smirk.
“How about you? Why were you in India? Getting married?” Insert awkward laugh from me.
Then, and I don’t know why, I lied.
I told him that I actually was going to move to India for work, but that I am in love with a woman in Vancouver and that I am going back to ask her to marry me. A romantic lie yes, however what he told me next was a little crazy.
“Sounds familiar,” he said.
“Oh really? You know someone?”
“Me,” he said.
Honestly, I was not prepared for that answer. He told me that many years ago he went chasing after a young lady in Vancouver. She was white. He told me that after he finished school his family thought it best for him to come to Canada because of the better opportunity at the time.
“It was the ‘70s, so basically the thinking was I would make more money and help the rest of the family,” he told me -- which is a very common story of that time.
So he came to Canada to become a pharmacist and that’s where they met.
“Her name was Michelle, Michelle LeClair.” He went on: “Her family was originally from Quebec, but her parents moved to Calgary.” Her father worked in oil.
They met during school orientation. “She thought my accent was funny; I told her it was attractive,” he joked.
Slowly and secretly they started to see each other and fell in love. “Like all young people do,” he grinned. Trust me this guy was like an old Indian Paul Newman or how I would envision an old Indian Paul Newman to be.
They dated for almost two years and then midway through university she switched schools and moved to Vancouver -- something about UBC being better for her career.
Of course, he was heartbroken.
Of course, I was sitting next to this man thinking about how my lie got him telling me his love story, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was supposed to hear it.
“That summer I felt like I was in one of those Bollywood love stories, very sad, and listening to sad Bollywood songs,” he said.
“What did you do?” I asked, like a five-year-old.
“I jumped on a bus and went to Vancouver!”
The scene started to form in my head. I could see this handsome Indian man sitting on a bus with a flannel shirt and bell bottoms while Love Somebody by the Bee Gees played in the background.
“I went to the UBC and started looking for her. I had not seen her in months so I was very excited! Finally I see her in the cafeteria.”
My heart was screaming about this romantic movie moment.
Then he said: “I go to her and she is surprised to see me but very happy, and in that moment I don’t know what came over me, but I ask her to marry me.”
“Young love can make us crazy!” he added. I was sitting at the edge of my seat waiting for him to finish.
“We walked outside and talked and she said that we couldn’t get married because we are from different cultures and her parents would never accept me and that it was best if I go back to Calgary.”
Crushed.
Here I was starting to think that his wife in India is a woman named Michelle. That two people could look past what makes them different and saw how similar they were. That they fell in love and that’s all that mattered.
But no. He jumped back on a bus the next day and came back to Calgary, heartbroken. He told me he finished school, went back to India, got married to his wife Kiran, had kids, and lives a very wonderful life.
“So I hope she says yes to you,” he joked, while I laughed awkwardly, feeling bad that I lied and feeling bad that there was no happy ending.
“So tell me her na—“
“That’s such a sad story!”
Yes he did ask her name, and yes I did talk over him.
“Not entirely,” he said, “I wouldn’t have met my wife if she would have said yes.”
I gave him a half-hearted smile and after a few silent moments he told me what I think is the best part of the story.
“About two years ago, I went to a wedding in Vancouver. A friend’s son was getting married to a white girl... And guess who her mother was?”
“Michelle?” I sounded like a teenage girl.
He nodded yes and my heart exploded. He told me that he went up to her, spoke to her and asked her about life. She said that she finished school and became a teacher, met a very good man and had three kids; her daughter who was getting married was the middle child. After a little more banter he finally asked her: “How did you let her daughter marry an Indian?”
She told him that one day there was a knock at her door, and when she opened the door she saw a young Indian man standing there.
“But all I could see was you,” she told him.
The boy had come to ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage.
“She told me that she never met him before because her daughter thought her husband and her would not approve, and her daughter ended the relationship months before. She believed it wouldn’t work because they have different backgrounds.”
He went on: “She said that when he asked her all she could say was yes, because she wanted her daughter to be happy with whomever she chose to be with.”
He was very happy to hear that and he told me that as she was about to leave, she turned to him and told him that although her husband was a wonderful man, he was too. He grinned at me and my heart went wild!
After a few pleasantries Sagar left to catch his flight.
I sat there thinking about what I just heard. Ideas like the laws of Karma and lessons we must learn kept going through my head. I thought that Sagar loved Michelle, but their love story was a lesson for Michelle, who thought that they couldn’t work; that you have to try and give your all in love, because our failures in love can be our or someone else’s lesson; that all stories of love, no matter what ending they may seem to have, will give birth to other love stories, and because of that there will always be a happy ending in our future.
But most of all I thought I gotta get back to Vancouver to marry a woman. ;)
Friday, July 5, 2013
One Poem of India
Strait out of India with a soul on fire.
prosperity blooming like a lotus flower.
From meditation to yoga with a new definitions of God.
Found heaven in my skin no more feeling odd.
A new Deva emerges, does that sound blasphemous?
Believing in ones self should not come with a ceiling built over it
If me gives birth to we, and we teaches me.
Then like a eternal circle at all ages we are pupils.
No longer will I live in one way of intellgience.
The Galaxy inside me has had it's own big bang.
No Theory is needed I understand theI am.
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