A Favor in Return
In his recent speech at my younger son’s wedding, my elder son invoked my relationship with my late elder brother. He said: “My father had a beautiful tradition for many years. Every single day, he would call his brother just to say hello. No matter how busy life became, he always made time for that relationship.” My elder son then went on to recount a couple of wonderful examples of my sons’ childhood adventures. As entertaining as his entire speech was, what lingered with me was the profound connection I perceived between those childhood adventures and the person who had, in part, inspired our family’s traditions . My brother with Dad in front of the iconic Taj (Nov. 1966) My brother died on Sept. 2, 2019, a little over a month short of his 67th birthday. By coincidence, my father too had died just six weeks short of his 70th. What makes that coincidence even more surreal to me is that their deaths were eerily similar. Neither had been confined to a hospital bed awaiting the inevitab...