24th April 2021: A day of birth and death

04:00AM EST (eastern standard time) waking up from a slumber to check my phone, excited to see some of my birthday messages..... was a message and a missed call wedged between all other messages from my dad:

"Hi Kishen we just receive news that Vijay passed away had a heart attack after playing squash"

At first I was befuddled trying to comprehend and make sense of this for second or so, and just to make sure of my understanding, I WhatsApp called my dad to to confirm that what I had read was indeed true. Our beloved uncle "Vijay Bhana" aka Vjmama (mama: meaning uncle in Gujarati) had passed away. I cannot explain that feeling, perhaps shock best describes it. In that moment I woke Tejal up and both of us sprung out of bed trying to get in touch with other family members to get some other information with no luck as everyone had been scrambling to get funeral arrangements organized. Eventually, we received information that the funeral had been arranged for 1:30PM CAT( South African time). Being in Canada we could not physically attend the funeral and with the ongoing pandemic, we could not return to SA to pay our respects in person, which made it tough to say goodbye. Thankfully with technology, my sister connected us in real time and we watched the funeral pr