There is a strange stillness that arrives when someone you love leaves the world.
The world continues.
The sun rises.
Children go to school.
People go to work.
Cars stop at traffic lights.
Birds continue singing.
Everything behaves as though nothing has happened.
Only your own universe has collapsed.
Less than four hours from the first signs of discomfort until his final breath.
The man who had lived his entire life in motion had become still.
It didn’t feel real.
Even today, sometimes it doesn’t.
Later, piece by piece, I learned what had happened.
He had complained of discomfort in his chest and breathing.
It did not seem alarming at first.
He received a nebulizer treatment and returned home.
But something inside him knew.
He wanted to remain where he was.
Others insisted he should go to another hospital.
Reluctantly, he agreed.
He travelled there in an auto-rickshaw.
Even in discomfort, he remained independent.
He walked into the hospital himself.
Soon after arriving, he began sweating heavily.
His condition deteriorated rapidly.
Doctors fought for him.
CPR briefly brought him back.
For a moment, hope returned.
Then came another heart attack.
And another.
His heart, which had carried so many people for so many years, could carry no more.
Within hours…
Appa was gone.
For years I had imagined this day.
Whenever we love someone deeply, we also fear losing them.
I always knew one thing.
I never wanted my last memory of Appa to be a body lying in silence.
I wanted my last memory to be alive.
Walking through the front gate after work.
Calling my name.
Smiling.
Adjusting his sandals.
Holding grocery bags.
Looking at us with those expressive eyes that always smiled before his lips did.
I wanted him exactly as he had always been.
Alive.
In the days that followed, another truth emerged.
We learned of financial decisions Appa had made that none of us fully understood during his lifetime.
The discoveries hurt.
Not because they erased the father we knew.
But because they revealed burdens he had carried alone.
For days I struggled to reconcile the two men.
The gentle father.
The man who had made mistakes.
Eventually I realized…
They were never two different people.
They were one human being.
A man capable of extraordinary kindness.
A man capable of flawed decisions.
Like every one of us.
Love does not require pretending someone was perfect.
Love requires seeing the whole person.
And loving them anyway.
As a family, we made a decision together.
We would not defend what was wrong.
Nor would we deny everything that had been beautiful.
We would correct whatever could ethically or legally be corrected.
We would never knowingly benefit from anything that had been wrongly earned.
But neither would we allow decades of love, sacrifice, and fatherhood to disappear beneath a single chapter of his life.
His legacy deserved honesty.
Not denial.
Not condemnation.
Honesty.
That became our peace.
Nine days after Appa’s passing came the final Hindu rites.
Karuma Kaariyam.
Sapindikaranam.
For many Hindu families, these ceremonies mark the completion of a soul’s earthly journey into joining the ancestors.
On that same day…
It was my birthday.
I have often wondered whether that was coincidence.
Or grace.
One journey completed.
Another quietly beginning.
All through those days, I waited.
Not for a miracle.
Not for proof.
Just for him.
From the moment he passed, I felt his presence around me in Canada.
Sometimes sitting quietly in my living room.
Sometimes beside me.
Sometimes simply near enough that I instinctively turned around.
People may explain such moments differently.
Grief.
Memory.
Faith.
Love.
I never felt the need to explain them.
I simply experienced them.
Deep inside, I knew he would come.
Reflection
People often ask whether grief ever disappears.
I don’t think it does.
I think it changes its shape.
At first, grief is a storm.
Then it becomes an ocean.
Eventually…
It becomes a star.
Always there.
Not always visible.
But always guiding you home.
That is why this memoir is called The North Star.
Because even after his light disappeared from the earth…
It never disappeared from my sky.