The Weight of Absence - A Reflection on a Funeral I Didn’t Attend

There’s a heaviness that lingers when you miss something you know matters—not out of disdain, but out of something quieter, more tangled. It’s not a confession, but it’s not far from one either. When my father’s uncle—his father’s elder brother’s son, a man with skill, passion and talent—passed away at 92, I didn’t go to his funeral. The news came while I was away, caught in the relentless churn of life, and I chose to stay where I was. I prayed from a distance, but I didn’t step into the crowd of mourners. Now, as I sit with that choice, I feel the need to unravel it—not to justify it, but to understand it, to hold it up to the light.

He was a towering figure in my childhood memories, hazy but warm, like sunlight filtering through a dusty windowpane. We had a small house in Arasikere, a modest town where my father laid each brick with pride. This man, my father’s uncle, contributed the main door and the windows—simple pieces, yet they framed our world back then. I can still picture him, broad-shouldered and resolute, a man who carried respect like a well-worn coat. He was a rebel in his own right, not bound by the rigid lines of caste or creed. To him, work was worship, and he poured himself into it with a fervor that defied his years.

He was a farmer, an innovator, a manager at a local bank—an NBFC, as we call it now. He embraced technology and irrigation techniques to coax prosperity from the stubborn earth. His fields weren’t just patches of dirt; they were canvases of progress, painted green with effort and ingenuity. I remember him once showing me a contraption he’d rigged to water his crops—a makeshift sprinkler cobbled from old pipes and a bicycle wheel. “Why wait for the rain when you can make your own?” he’d said with a grin. That was him: tireless, forward-thinking, a man who didn’t rest because he didn’t know how.

But he wasn’t just a man of the soil. He had a mind that reached beyond the fields, into the world of words. One night, over a glass of wine—or maybe two—I remembered something extraordinary: he translated Irving Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstasy—the sprawling life story of Michelangelo—into Kannada, our local language. That’s no small feat. It’s not just about swapping words; it’s about carrying a whole world across borders, breathing life into a Renaissance genius for people in a small town to touch. He didn’t just read—he devoured, he understood, he loved literature in a way that’s rare these days. It’s like he was a vine rooted deep in the earth, stretching toward the sun, but also curling around to admire the flowers blooming nearby. Not just his own blossoms, but the ground flowers, the plant flowers, the wild bursts of color that others might overlook. That was his beauty: he thrived in his own work, but he never stopped marveling at the world’s.

Translated to Kannada by N. S Nagaraj Nuggehalli

Translating a book like that takes more than skill—it takes heart. He must have seen something of himself in Michelangelo, a man who wrestled with stone to find the soul within it, just as my uncle wrestled with the land to bring forth its yield. And in sharing that story with Kannada readers, he gave us all a gift: a bridge between a distant artist’s passion and our own corner of Karnataka. I wish I’d asked him about it, about what drew him to those pages. But I see it now—his life was a tapestry of labor and literature, of sweat and stories, woven together with a curiosity that never dimmed.

Progress, though, comes with a price. His ideas—whether in the fields or in the family—made enemies as often as they made allies. He was both admired and questioned, a lightning rod for debates over dinner. He didn’t care. He spoke to everyone—Vokkaligas, Brahmins, anyone—without a whiff of prejudice, even though our lineage carried its own caste weight. To me, he was a beacon. When I was young and full of half-formed dreams, he’d listen, really listen, and nudge me toward the path he’d walked: one of challenge, of growth. “Take on the world, but do it right,” he’d say. I think he saw in me a flicker of the fire he’d carried.

So why didn’t I go? It’s not that I didn’t respect him. It’s not that his 92 years of life didn’t deserve my presence. It’s simpler and messier than that. Funerals are a theater of faces—some genuine, some performative—and I’ve seen too many of the latter let us down. I didn’t want to stand among them, shaking hands with people. There was a time, years ago, when this uncle faltered too. He’d sided, we all do and he was no exception. Let that remain with me.

Still, his death hit me. I’d seen him cheat it before—three, maybe four times, false alarms spread through the family like whisper. The second time, I went. He was frail but sharp, teasing me about my city life. “Don’t let those gears grind you down,” he’d said, nodding toward the invisible machine I’d already started oiling—the corporate wheel that never stops. Maybe that’s why, when the real call came, I hesitated. I didn’t want to see him still, didn’t want to face the crowd, didn’t want to feel the weight of all those eyes. Instead, I sent my aging parents in my place, ensuring they could pay their respects while I stayed back, tethered to work that doesn’t pause for grief.

Life is a relentless gear, isn’t it? It turns and turns, and we’re all caught in its teeth. I oil it daily—meetings, deadlines, paychecks—because if it stops, everything does. That’s the excuse I tell myself, the materialistic trap I’ve stepped into. But it’s not the whole story. I wanted to honor him my way, quietly, without the clamor of a funeral. I wanted to remember him as the man who fed his cattle at dawn, who turned barren land into something alive, who bridged Michelangelo’s world to ours—not as a body surrounded by murmurs.

To his daughter, a doctor, a gem of a soul tending to the same village he loved—I’d say this: my absence wasn’t disrespect. Your father shaped me in ways I’m still discovering, and I carry him with me, even from afar. I see you in his tirelessness, his compassion, and I hope you know I mourned him too, just not in the crowd.

Maybe I’m writing this for myself, to untangle the guilt and the gratitude. Maybe it’s for when I’m old, so I can look back and say, “Yes, I felt it all.” He was a man who built more than houses—he built ideas, families, legacies. A vine among flowers, rooted yet reaching. And though I didn’t stand by his pyre, I stand by what he taught me: to face the world, to do it right, and to keep the gears turning, even when they creak with loss.