Page 19 of The Love Thief

“In the spring,” Deepak continued, “I completed my master’s degree and was offered a junior teaching position at the university.

Nancy was still working on getting a degree in social work.

When I accepted the teaching position, I wrote my parents a long letter telling them of my plans to stay in America.

And that I had met the love of my life. I included a photograph of the two of us, letting them know that they could tell the matchmakers to give up on me as I planned to propose to Nancy.

“You can’t imagine the reaction my parents had, because she was not Indian.

They called and told me that she would not fit into our family since she is not a Hindu, that they were very disappointed with me, as were my grandparents and that, as a Westerner, she would never be a good mother and would put herself and her career before family, and we would end up getting divorced.

“As painful as hearing all that was, I proposed to her the next week and she said yes. Her parents’ reaction wasn’t much better—it was the American version of what I got from my family—we ended up eloping.

“Eventually, after our first child was born, both sets of parents relented and ended up becoming wonderful grandparents and loving in-laws. But defying them initially was one of the scarier things I’ve ever done.

“When our oldest was nearly two, Nancy insisted that we bring him to India to meet my family. She said that even if my family didn’t want to meet her, she wanted our son to receive the blessings of his grandparents and extended family.

Fortunately, my father wanted to meet ‘the mother of his grandchild,’ and Nancy being Nancy, her kind, caring, loving self won their hearts. ”

Deepak beamed with pride as he recounted Nancy’s courage to face their intercultural differences head-on. Without even trying, I began to like Nancy, too.

“We had nearly thirty-one amazing years together until she got sick. It all happened rather quickly . . . she had been losing weight and feeling tired for a few months and finally went for a checkup only to be given shocking news. She had stage four pancreatic cancer. She died at home, just four months later, surrounded by me and the kids.”

I thought Deepak might cry at this point.

I sure felt like starting up again, but I tried to sit as still as possible as he continued.

I could not imagine suffering such a loss.

My heartbreak suddenly seemed less agonizing than his.

Death, after all, is an irretrievable loss.

You never get the person back. And even though I never wanted Barry in my life again, a part of me was starting to believe that I might be able to get a piece of myself back in the process of letting the idea of him go.

“I don’t really remember much about that first year after she passed.

I was in a constant state of agony, disbelief, and unspeakable pain.

My grad students were covering most of my classes for me and, when I had to show up to work, I pulled myself together for a few hours and powered through.

Many days I had to convince myself to survive just for the next five minutes and would find something, anything, to distract me.

I even went to some support groups, but being in the presence of other widows and widowers didn’t help me.

“There were nights when I literally shouted obscenities out loud to whatever God or gods exist. My kids were really afraid I was going to take my own life, so they held an intervention, just the three of them and me. They asked me what the one thing was that I had always been passionate about. Or what was the one thing I had always dreamed of doing. I couldn’t think of anything, especially since Nancy wasn’t going to be by my side.

Then my daughter said to me, ‘Daddy, look at all the books you have, you must have thousands, and you’ve always cherished books and reading. Why don’t you open a bookstore?’”

I looked around the bookshelves surrounding us like wise guardians and tried to imagine his daughter envisioning what I now saw before me.

Hmm , I thought, she’s right about that.

“But instead of agreeing with her, I told her that bookstores seemed to be the worst business in the world right now.

“We didn’t come up with any solutions that night, but she had planted a seed.

I began looking over my huge book collection, many of which are spiritual classics, books on metaphysics, meditation, mindfulness, and all types of religions, and I wondered if there was some connection between me and the world of books. ”

A new picture of Deepak started to emerge in my mind. He had fulfilled a lifelong dream despite his pain. Or perhaps , I thought, because of it .

“On a trip home a few months later to visit my mother, who was still going strong, almost ninety-six, I decided to take a few days to attend the aarti ceremonies in Haridwar and Rishikesh,” Deepak said.

“As I was walking around Rishikesh, I stopped at this bookstore and café for lunch and spent an hour browsing the collection.

The elderly owner and I had a long conversation about Krishnamurti, and then he shared with me that he was getting too old to run the business.

He needed to find a buyer and told me he thought my love of books made me the perfect candidate.

“My first reaction was ‘That’s crazy!’ so I graciously thanked him and told him I would soon head back to Michigan.

“He stared into my eyes and said to me, ‘That is your past. Your future and your healing are here next to Ma Ganga.’ And with that, he walked away.”

Deepak picked up the framed photograph of himself with Swamiji and Sadhviji.

“This was taken that very evening, after the aarti ceremony at Parmarth Niketan Ashram. It was my first time there, and Swamiji walked over to me and said, ‘Welcome home’ and then Sadhviji invited me to the private puja area to spend more time with them. There were about thirty of us seated on rugs, and we were told to ask anything we wanted. I asked, ‘How do you go on living when you don’t have a reason to live?’

“Swamiji signaled to Sadhviji to answer, and I still remember she looked straight at me and said, ‘the things, the people, the goals, the enjoyments of our lives—whatever they may be—these are not what we live for. If you’ve been living for something or someone that you’ve failed at or lost, then you haven’t understood life. ’

“She explained to me that we are not here on Planet Earth with the gift of a human body to be the perfect wife or husband or mother or father. We are not here to be successful in our careers or anything like that, even though that’s what most of us think.

I had always thought that my whole reason for living was Nancy, and she had been.

But, that wasn’t really right nor my true purpose, even if Nancy had still been alive.

“Ultimately, Sadhviji reminded me we all lose our relationships either through death or divorce. Nothing is permanent. It’s a fallacy and a misdirection to live for someone or something or even for the whole fantasy drama of a white-picket-fence life.

We are here on Earth in this precious human form to experience the divinity of our own selves and to connect with the divinity of the Universe, which ultimately isn’t separate from our own true self. That’s the purpose of our life.”

I inhaled deeply, attempting to digest what he had said, not certain I really wanted to understand because if I accepted this as the truth, then I had to come to terms with the fact that, up until now, I had had it all wrong.

I had spent my entire life waiting for the one person who would give me the life of my dreams.

“But if the purpose is to experience our own divinity,” I asked, “why is it so hard to do? What’s the point of all this suffering?”

“Sadhviji explained that the relationships we have and the tasks we perform are not supposed to be our reason for living,” Deepak said softly, “but rather, they are a vehicle for our awakening to the truth of our own divinity.

The highest goal of a relationship or a job or any goal is not how long I can hold on to it, or how much joy I can get from it, or how much I can make from it.

It is rather, how can it bring me closer to the Divine?

How can it bring me closer to the Truth?

How can it help me expand and open to grace?

“Sometimes that happens in health and success. Sometimes that happens in sickness, death, and loss. She gave examples of so many of the sages or prophets of all religions and how they all struggled. They were all, in our way of looking at things, victimized and betrayed. They all lost so much. If God had wanted us to model our lives based on only happiness, gain, and success, surely His incarnations, prophets, and sages would have lived those lives. But they didn’t.

“From Lord Krishna and Lord Ram to Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha—look at their lives.

Would you want to live any of the lives they did?

They showed us, through lives of loss and struggle, that the point of life is not to just get through it as easily and perfectly as possible, with your white picket fence, but to allow your heart to break open and let in the light of the Divine.

“So, Sadhviji helped me understand that Nancy was a wonderful, divine part of my own life’s journey of realization, and that beyond Nancy, I had a purpose.

A purpose of realizing my connection to the Divine.

Nancy and I believed that we were more than soulmates, that we are twin flames, and that we have been together before and will be together again.

So, you see, Holly, you did not take birth just to have a nice, easy, well-to-do life with Barry and a white picket fence.

You were born to be cracked open to the light of the Divine who lives within you and connects you to the Universe. ”

It was a lot to take in. I sighed deeply. “Is there even a chance in hell that I will find my twin flame?” I asked, feeling the lump in my throat growing.

“Holly, you took birth to realize who you really are, and what I know for sure is that your real, true soulmate is out there. And he is looking for you, just as you are seeking him. In time you will heal from this horrific heartbreak. One day, at the right time, which will be in divine timing, you and your beloved will meet.”

His reassuring words soothed my pain in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I felt a flicker of hope dance in my heart.

“It is very fortunate that you are here in Rishikesh. There is a reason why it is one of the holiest cities on Earth. The veils between the worlds are thinner here. Magic and miracles occur here on a regular basis. I want you to know that I am holding the sacred space for your healing, your transformation, and ultimately the coming together of you and your beloved.”

When he had finished, Deepak inhaled deeply, then smiled at me and said, “Are you hungry? I have something special in the kitchen for you.”

“Yes,” I told him. “In fact, as usual, I am starving.” A few minutes later, he returned from the café’s kitchen and brought me a tray with a delicious cheese omelet, Indian spiced potatoes, and a hot cup of chai. I devoured every bit of it.

It turns out there is a black market for nonvegetarian food in Rishikesh, and I was truly touched that he remembered that I mentioned missing having eggs for breakfast. That, plus feeling Deepak’s compassion for my story, hearing his story of losing Nancy, and my happy, full belly, brought about a level of comfort I couldn’t quite name.

The food and his story soothed me on such a deep level that I could feel the pain begin to peel off my skin and slip to the floor, drop by drop, like a dripping faucet.

I don’t know whether it was the spicy food, Deepak’s history, or the rising heat outside, but I began to feel slightly feverish as if my sorrow needed to incinerate from the inside out. What had started out as a morning misery level of 10+ now barely ranked a 2.