Laxman Chapai rip

Dear Lord Jesus,  we pray for his mother and father, the grief is unsustainable, please pray for Suraksha, dear sweet angel, may God give you peace, Suman, be strong, my heart breaks with yours, be strong, Harimaya, poor woman, what is this all about, may God give you strength, such an unnecessary loss, please Jesus and Buddha come to the help of these dear friends, the grief is beyond words right now.

My last facebook note to Laxman perhaps within hours of taking his own life unnecessarily, said I’d be going back to the states after finishing here in Afghanistan in three weeks.  Ke garne?  what to do I finished the message.  I had also complained about my lack of sleep and all the problems in my head and then I asked if the monsoon had come yet and if his family was ok.

He never replied.

Then I see last night tributes.  What the double eff? 

Did Laxman think just long enough his own death would make things better for anyone?  It’s ludicrous.  He wasn’t a man who thought of hopelessness.  He had the energy of ten men, I envied his ambitions though I couldn’t share them with the building of the second guesthouse.  I know why he built it and I had nothing to say that he wanted to hear, he was going to build it.  And it was sparked by his own family, his cousin who built a guesthouse completely ruining the view from the garden.  Laxman had no choice, he was jealous but he was also ambitious.

Something I may have said in the last sms could have had an influence on something far bigger on his mind at the moment.  And what was that, I don’t know.  A good friend told me this morning he was the richest man in town buying properties all over the area.  What was he buying properties with if he didn’t have any money.  He had money in a variety of places, investments, but he also had to my last count eight bank accounts.  He was a businessman who became very successful.

He didn’t  klll himself because I said I was going back to the US.  He never replied, he never asked me why, something else was going on and it is going to make me very uneasy if my last words to him pushed him where he had a choice to make and he made the wrong one and I cannot be guilty of that.  Oh Lord,

His spirit was not at peace and now it’s out there somewhere looking for a home or on its own among his people and this mountain.  Will he be able to be near those he so selfishly left behind, ripping out hearts of good people, loving people, how will they ever forget such an act, it is beyond me and it is what brings me to tears.    

Their loss.  Your loss, Laxman, if your spirit is hearing now, find peace somehow and now and let your family heal.

sonuvabitch, goddam man, eating hot green chilies at every meal, blood boiling, thinking, imagining too much.  Money one our friends said, money can’t be a reason to kill yourself unless it was the only way to keep it out of someone’s hands, unlikely.  But who knows, the roots of Laxman’s people is long and deep and rifts wherever they come from reverberate.

Laxman’s marriage to Harimaya was arraigned and among the three siblings only his remained together.  He respected his father so much more than his older rebellious brother did and that is why he remained conservative in heart and deed but the fire was there and it was strong. 

Laxman was an important part of the family of Sarangkot.  His efforts as president of the Sarangkot Tourism Committee to make the place a nicer place to come to were noble and honorable and today, seven years since I first met Laxman, the village sitting at the peak of a mountain has better roads, better lighting, construction is booming, people are optimistic even after last year’s earthquake, its citizens continue to build and the temple at the top has come a long way, so I just don’t understand how he could walk away from it.  He will be terribly missed.

I don’t understand but Lord have mercy on this mountain and these people and Lord, give peace to his soul and to all his loved ones.