Eddie, The Bridge and I.

Eddie, The Bridge and I.**

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. George Eliot

There is so much I could say about Eddie if only I knew my way around with words. But, emboldened by the many prayers Eddie said for us in the the everyday tongue that he spoke with Him in; I will converse of Eddie into the void he left us.

The news of Eddie leaving this earthy abode saddened me. I felt abandoned for a while; I would not hear his voice on the telephone or see him at his house or church or our house. The morning I heard the news of his passing, Eddie’s thoughts came to me in the words of a well-known hymn: Bold I approach the eternal throne, And claim the crown, through Christ my own. He was always ready to meet his Maker. He spoke gently and confidently of that moment many times in our hours together. I was left thinking he would be happy with a line of a song that went: toss me to the winds of time when I die (sweet honey in the rock).

I will dwell a while on the time we were in the same singing group at Church. He, Jenny and his children were part of the same group – The Bridge. Jenny and Eddie were able allies in our pursuit of worship in song together, in many voices. Laughter came easily to them, even when they walked in the darkness of the Valley. Our church life was alive in large part because we could live on this group (The Bridge)the inclusiveness the Good Book taught us, even as the larger body of the Church seemed to pull itself in the opposite direction of profit and material and exclusivity. The Bridge was a group of folks of all ages, and Eddie was in large part its voice and action in the pursuit of its purpose of inclusion and truth that set us free, secured in the warm embrace of love. He spent hours looking for songs the group could sing, and even played them out on his piano for us folks who could only sing by ear and didn’t read music. Even this he did was such niceness, not once insisting on the song he laboured over to be picked by the group. He joked of those episodes to echoes of great laughter.

I leaned on Eddie as we worked to keep The Bridge above the ever raging waters outside. I would like to believe we, The Bridge, had such strength in the togetherness liberally sprinkled with deep laughter and a sense of joy. Eddie was sensitive to the cause and to us folks who worked on it. He has called me many times because he sensed that I was weighed down, offering solace as we separated the wheat from the chaff and made right the discordant strains and set our lives back on songs. Many a time when the ill winds threatened to blow songbirds away from the house of the lord, Eddie encouraged us on with lessons from history, literature, jokes and the Good Book.

He helped lighten the heavy air and shone more light on the straight and narrow, he wore his responsibility lightly but with utmost diligence. He would be at every practice well ahead of time. He made doing things together and being together look as easy and essential as the air we breathed.

India’s economic policy change in 1991 had put us all in the pursuit of happiness in the material. The Church was not spared that pursuit, Churches were classified on their income and new class divisions thrived – new urban caste stagger had begun. Amidst this scenario, Eddie with his very being taught us to hold things lightly.

Eddie offered his services wherever he saw the need. He didn’t need special mention, attention or even thanks in return. He was a team man whose joy was in the happiness of the rest. He once volunteered to work at the Church office and quit when they wanted to pay him. Little did we, the church, understand his faith and knowledge and his abiding belief in the abundance Jesus promised those who came to him.

Oh god, how much we will miss him in the post-pandemic world, even as I am confident of hearing his voice ever so often along the paths of what remains of my life’s journey. I still hear him in the pages of books I read, in the songs that play, the orchids that bloom…

He loved the written word. Oh, the many hours we spent trying to find the real meaning of words, the words the great masters like Dante and Dickens used to weave life. I delighted in his joy of the written word it often lit our darkened paths and but spring in our steps. When old words found a new light, they shone as in perfectly cut diamonds. Yes, like the word that was in the beginning, and it then became flesh…

The loss of Eddie’s presence amongst us will be felt for a long while to come. But the dust he returned to is a part of the earth that calls my name gently and stills the storms in the deep darkness of the nights.

So long Eddie! One of these days and it won’t be long, We’ll rejoin you in a song, and join that circle at the throne

– 9 July 2021

**Eddie left us on 19th April this year, 2021. These are a few random thoughts on a man who I had the privilege to be in close proximity in public spaces and deeply in private spaces for a few years. Oh yes, Friends makes all roads of this life tenable.