I looked down at my wrist. The faded bracelet, a red string that had been strung around my wrist 4 times and secured tightly with a knot, had come undone. It was slowly unraveling. With one flick of my wrist, it would be off - gone. And with it, gone, the ubiquitous memory of a person I had encountered 2 years ago, in a life far different than the one I was walking in today.
May 2008
It was a hot summer day in northern India. The monsoon season would soon be upon us. A brief but stalwart rain had begun the morning. The mosquitoes would soon be flocking to our pale skin.
We sat along the wall holding numbers ranging from 1 through 10, all waiting our turn to see the doctor. Each of us waiting patiently yet anxiously to hear our “diagnosis” to receive our “prescription.” The door opened. A short-statured woman, with black hair, weathered skin, and wise, calm eyes, filled the narrow doorway. She requested patient 1. The 9 of us searched the hands of familiar faces. Not one of us held the requested number. Then the lone stranger, a Tibetan monk cloaked in a maroon robe, unveiled, with a devious smile, the sought after number. He chuckled gregariously as he followed the Tibetan medicine practitioner into her office.
Hours later, I stood in the streets of Dharamsala, India, curiously studying the face of a community living in exile. A community grown from a 24-year-old spiritual leader’s escape from his native home in the Tibetan plateau of China to this place of refuge in the foothills of the Himalayas. In the 50 years since, some 80,000 Tibetan refugees had since followed suit.
Despite his familiar face, it was not the visage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, though that caught the eye of my friend Lindsay that day. Rather, it was the face of a recent acquaintance – the monk from the Tibetan medicine clinic.
Though initially conspiring to take a photo from a distance, we opted in the end to trade in the paparazzi-style attention we’d been receiving in recent days for an attempt at conversation. Beyond the initial Tibetan greeting of “tashi delek,” we didn’t have a clue as to how to proceed.
As if words mattered.
Over the course of the next couple days, Lindsay and I taught our new friend Lude how to blow bubbles. He taught us the Tibetan alphabet. We showed him how to use a digital camera. He made us tea. We showed him pictures of our family. He shared coveted pictures of the Dalai Lama. And we laughed much and often.
During one of our most memorable visits, after a meal of tea (“chai”), peeled potatoes (“aloo”), and bananas, he gave each of us a gift. Around our right wrists, he wrapped a red string 4 times. He tied a knot. As we learned, this “protection and blessing cord” was symbolic of remaining within the protection of his compassionate embrace even after departing from his physical presence. It was in effect to give us strength and protection.
Not long after, our small group of Miami University students who had journeyed to India for a month to learn about the Tibetan culture, returned home to the States. Within weeks, I moved to Mozambique, Africa where I had a job beckoning me. Lindsay returned to Oxford, Ohio to work for the summer and stay on for her final year of undergraduate education.
Despite the distance, language barriers and the circumstances of where we lived, we all managed to keep in touch. Then in August 2009, we received our final correspondence from Lude. Despite the danger of his decision, he was returning to his native Tibet. In his final email, Lude expressed (through a friend who translated his words), “I will call you and write to you after I reached back in Tibet and hope you will also keep in touch with me like before. I will pray for your happiness and success for all of your family members wherever I go. I am also hope that we will rejoin in Tibet.”
June 2010
As the protection cord unraveled, I reflected upon the friend who had bequeathed me with such a gift. A warm, genuine, spirited soul but one whose eyes were marred with sadness for a place he called home. Tibet. A place that was once a sanctuary for Tibetans, now a plateau scarce with natives, scarred by cultural genocide. To return, not a fate many choose.
10 months later. Lude’s silence was telling.
My gut reaction was to retie the knot. I paused. For 2 years, I had worn the amulet. For 2 years, it had been a source and reminder of strength. A reminder that someone out there was praying for me, believing in me and in my protection. I had worn it through my year living in Africa and my return, through knee surgery and its recovery, through finding love and losing it, through ups and downs and a myriad of emotions in between.
Lude had held my hand, given me strength when I needed it but now…. Now, I realized –
I could stand on my own.
With one flick, my wrist was freed. And in some small way, so was I.
Though initially conspiring to take a photo from a distance, we opted in the end to trade in the paparazzi-style attention we’d been receiving in recent days for an attempt at conversation. Beyond the initial Tibetan greeting of “tashi delek,” we didn’t have a clue as to how to proceed.
As if words mattered.
Over the course of the next couple days, Lindsay and I taught our new friend Lude how to blow bubbles. He taught us the Tibetan alphabet. We showed him how to use a digital camera. He made us tea. We showed him pictures of our family. He shared coveted pictures of the Dalai Lama. And we laughed much and often.
During one of our most memorable visits, after a meal of tea (“chai”), peeled potatoes (“aloo”), and bananas, he gave each of us a gift. Around our right wrists, he wrapped a red string 4 times. He tied a knot. As we learned, this “protection and blessing cord” was symbolic of remaining within the protection of his compassionate embrace even after departing from his physical presence. It was in effect to give us strength and protection.
Not long after, our small group of Miami University students who had journeyed to India for a month to learn about the Tibetan culture, returned home to the States. Within weeks, I moved to Mozambique, Africa where I had a job beckoning me. Lindsay returned to Oxford, Ohio to work for the summer and stay on for her final year of undergraduate education.
Despite the distance, language barriers and the circumstances of where we lived, we all managed to keep in touch. Then in August 2009, we received our final correspondence from Lude. Despite the danger of his decision, he was returning to his native Tibet. In his final email, Lude expressed (through a friend who translated his words), “I will call you and write to you after I reached back in Tibet and hope you will also keep in touch with me like before. I will pray for your happiness and success for all of your family members wherever I go. I am also hope that we will rejoin in Tibet.”
June 2010
As the protection cord unraveled, I reflected upon the friend who had bequeathed me with such a gift. A warm, genuine, spirited soul but one whose eyes were marred with sadness for a place he called home. Tibet. A place that was once a sanctuary for Tibetans, now a plateau scarce with natives, scarred by cultural genocide. To return, not a fate many choose.
10 months later. Lude’s silence was telling.
My gut reaction was to retie the knot. I paused. For 2 years, I had worn the amulet. For 2 years, it had been a source and reminder of strength. A reminder that someone out there was praying for me, believing in me and in my protection. I had worn it through my year living in Africa and my return, through knee surgery and its recovery, through finding love and losing it, through ups and downs and a myriad of emotions in between.
Lude had held my hand, given me strength when I needed it but now…. Now, I realized –
I could stand on my own.
With one flick, my wrist was freed. And in some small way, so was I.
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