Mina Patel

Mina brings a creative, holistic lens to everything she does. Her background is a reflection of the many paths she has taken and motivated by her desire to build meaningful connections. She is an accomplished Social Justice Advocate, Educator, Storyteller, and more recently Filmmaker. She uses her background in social justice and civic engagement to bring a creative light to underserved voices through storytelling.

Her film Between the Silence explores the growing epidemic of loneliness through the lives of two socially isolated, immigrant women. A global citizen, Mina has lived, volunteered, and studied all over the world and loves soaking up local stories wherever she lands.

On a calm June morning, as I sat next to her, I could hear a Catholic priest giving last rites to a patient in the next room.  My mother, who everyone called Mum-mie, had been in the ICU for a few days.  My aunts and I took turns sitting with her.  Her listless body surrendered to the faint beepings of machines.  An IV drip fed her, a ventilator helped her breathe and the heart monitor continually checked her heart rate.

I was alone in the room when the digital numbers on the heart monitor gradually counted down…. 99…98… 97… 80…. Mum-mie’s heart was slowing down and within a few seconds, lights flashed and the monitor beeped menacingly loud and a team of residents, nurses, and doctors frantically rushed in but felt more like a slow-motion blur. I stood up from my chair, watching helplessly from the corner. And then suddenly everything stopped. Metastatic breast cancer had silenced her. She was gone and we tearfully let her go. 

Thirty-five years ago, Mum-mie arrived in Chicago on a frosty, winter night. Her eyes were teary and puffy, having left three small children behind in India as she joined my father to start a new life in America while we stayed behind with my grandparents and aunt. Two years would pass before she came back to get us. 

The Bombay Airport buzzed with excitement as her sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, and cousins huddled around her for the sendoff.  She looked elegant in her Patola sari woven delicately with silk and gold threads. It was her signature look, one that she continued throughout her life in America. She was uncomfortable in trousers and dresses -  too bold for her.  She clung to remnants of a life left behind. 

  Mum-mie’s smile was tinged with nervous tears making everyone else respond with choked blessings as they draped her neck with auspicious fresh flower garlands. I clung to her hand and cried because everyone was crying.  She was embarking on a journey that would take her 8,000 miles away from her life in a small, dusty village in the desert of Gujarat. 

As the eldest, Mum-mie quit school after the third grade to look after her five younger siblings. She had an organic intelligence, courage, and grit rooted in hard work.  She woke at dawn to cook family meals and plowed the fields the rest of the day.  The days were long and labor-intensive but there was the simple joy of working and being together.  She never found the same camaraderie in her life in Chicago.

Joy quickly turned into anguish when one day, hiding in the undergrowth was a thorn that poked her left eye, robbing it of her sight. The doctors weren’t able to save the eye. Fear and anxiety set in about whether my father would reject her now that she had a disfigured and blind eye. But there was no need to worry. My father, now working in Chicago, sent money for her treatment. 

Mum-mie was no less vibrant.  With quiet determination, she adapted to her new circumstances. Her good eye compensated for the blind one. She could literally find a needle in a haystack with her one good eye.  It took a whole village to rally behind her with love and support. She bounced back with a renewed spirit. 

When the final boarding announcement came on, she squeezed my hand before releasing it.  My small fingers clung to her sari as my aunts pulled me away. We watched her gentle spirit walk toward the departure gate. Within a few minutes, she was gone and we tearfully let her go. 

The ICU lounge quickly filled with nearby relatives. Others were on the way. A collective paralysis hinged on grief and disbelief seized the room, choking the air out of the room. There was no preparation for this moment. No one in our extended family of over 200 relatives had died in America. Mum-mie was the first. No one seemed to know what to do next. 

In the adjoining room, the Catholic priest heard our heartache and asked if we would like to pray together. Without consulting anyone, I nodded yes. Recognizing that we were not Christian, he gracefully recited a universal prayer about God calling her home. Mum-mie was a pioneer.  She paved the way for her entire family to immigrate to America.  And now, she was the first in the family to move to her eternal home. 

Arrangements were made for cremation. Hindus believe that after death, the physical body is no longer needed. Cremation releases the soul from the body towards its eternal freedom. The philosophy is beautifully laid out in the sacred Isha Upanishad:

Om.

That is the whole, this is the whole;

from the whole, the whole becomes manifest;

taking away the whole from the whole, the whole remains.

Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!

Om.

Puurnnam-Adah, Puurnnam-Idam Puurnnaat-Purnnam-Udacyate

Puurnnashya Puurnnam-Aadaaya Puurnnam-Eva-Avashissyate 

Om. Shaantih! Shaantih! Shaantih!

A year later, Mum-mie’s ashes were taken to India and scattered in the Ganges, the holy river of the Himalayas. With the ashes gone and no burial site, my feelings of loss were suddenly amplified.  I often went to her room and spoke out loud to her, hoping she would respond with some sort of sign. But the silence merely echoed between the walls. 

It was on one of those quiet moments in the house that the idea of planting a memorial tree in her name came to me. I was looking out in the backyard where Mum-mie fed the birds and squirrels. Her agrarian roots remained close to her heart. She had an affinity for birds, flowers, and trees. 

A memorial tree, with its roots dug deep into the earth, would be a life-affirming monument to honor her memory and create a place of remembrance. The tree would be a symbol of renewal and keeping Mum-mie’s spirit alive.  So, choosing the tree was important. 

The Park District sent a list of trees to choose from. I opted for a Magnolia tree.  It represented Mum-mie’s fortitude and beauty. The Magnolia symbolized endurance, love, and eternity.  The species had survived for more than a hundred million years. The tree’s distinctive delicate, fragrant flowers shoot out individually from the tips of its twigs. It is one of the first trees to bloom flowers. 

I imagined myself returning to the tree whenever I sought quiet reflection or to feel her presence.  Sitting under the Magnolia, I would think about Mum-mie’s enormous smile and fondness for mimicry. And I would remember her as my mother and take comfort in the eternal connection between our lives.