Our amazing mother, writer, singer, grandmother, wife, aunty, Susham Bedi, left us yesterday Friday March 20th at 5:45pm. We got the news on a sunny warm eve as I met my father outside for a walk (keeping our requisite six feet of distance for Covid). I was sitting on the ground with both my 9 month old son and my daughter while he took a phone call — giving the news she had just passed away at the hospital despite their efforts to resuscitate her. And now she is free.
How can I thank my mother for all that she gave me? The things she taught me were the most simple and the most important: they have shaped my life.
She said to me on one of the last days I got to talk to her before lost her ability to speak due to intubation, “Remember my love.” And by that I think she meant to remember the passion and ferocity with which she cared for her husband, her kids, their spouses, her grandkids, all of our friends and extended family — and even her students from Barnard, Columbia, NYU, Yale, and CUNY. I mean one of her student’s sisters married my brother! And not only people, but also her love for ideas which translated into a deep love for the arts, for literature, and for theatre. She came to see every single play I did in NY (and Williamstown and and other drivable distances!) as well as every film. I know no other audience member who saw as much of my work as she did (ok except for her companion, my amazing dad).
Purva Bedi