By Alison Larkin
Illustration by Jessica McGuirl
Photo by Sabine Von Falken
I fell in love with the Berkshires in 2010. I had just left my husband—now my wasbund—and I was looking for somewhere to raise two creative kids, who were 7 and 9 at the time. A friend told me that the Berkshires might be a good fit. “But,” she said darkly, “Whatever you do, don’t go up in February.” So I drove up in February, in a snowstorm, and the moment I stepped out of my car and onto Railroad Street, I knew I’d found our home.
My kids grew up surrounded by nature. They whizzed down ski slopes at Ski Butternut and performed at Shakespeare & Company’s Fall Festival, sword fighting and learning to unicycle. On our way to school in the early mornings, I’d point to the swirls of mist on Monument Mountain and say “Look! The wizards have been up all night, casting good magic over the Berkshire Hills!”
Flip forward nine years. My kids are in college and I’m busy narrating an audiobook of “The Complete Novels” of Jane Austen. On a snowy Sunday in January 2019, I pop in to The Red Lion Inn to get the New York Times, planning to spend my day off doing the crossword in my pajamas. The receptionist says she’s sorry, but the last paper is taken, and points over her shoulder at a man standing close by. He has the most beautiful eyes, and I instantly feel at peace.
“I’m sorry I took the last paper,” the man says, grinning at me sheepishly, handing me his New York Times.
“No, no,” I say, “I only get it to do the Sunday crossword, because it’s so much easier than Saturdays.”
“It is,” he says.
He tells me his name is Bhima, and that he came to America from South India 30 years earlier to do a PhD in engineering. I tell him I was adopted and came to America from England 30 years earlier to find my birth parents, which led to a career as a writer/comedian and later a novelist and audiobook narrator. Bhima tells me that after enduring corporate America, he was so concerned about climate change, he moved to Vermont to set up a solar company.
“Hang on,” I say. “If this is an elaborate ploy to get me to buy solar panels, you’re too late. I’ve already got them.”
Bhima’s laugh is infectious and joins with mine as we compare notes on life in America. Soon we are wearing the road out between Stockbridge and Bennington, where Bhima lives in a house powered by renewable energy. When we are not working, we spend every spare minute together. We hike up Mount Greylock, eat dinner at Blue Mango in Williamstown and listen to jazz in Bennington. We buy wine at Nejaime’s, picnic at Tanglewood, and eat masala dosa at Mint in Lee. We go to plays at Shakespeare & Company, marvel at the beauty of Monument Mountain, and can’t get over how different the Housatonic Flats and the Mary Flynn Trail look each time the seasons change.
We travel to England and Spain. We meet each other’s families. My kids love him. Once trust has built, love builds and there we are, in our fifties, fully in love for the first time in our lives, with someone who “gets” us. It’s like wearing a shoe that is too tight your entire life, then finally taking it off. Bhima asks me to marry him on a walk by a river in July 2020. We will create a home together that friends and family will love to come to from India and England and beyond.
Five days later, after a perfect day playing rummy and looking up at the stars, Bhima says he isn’t feeling well. The doctor tells him to go to the medical center to get a COVID test. They won’t let me go in with him because of COVID, and they tell me to wait outside by the car.
Then a security guard tells me they left Bhima alone in a room, and when they came back they found him on the floor in cardiac arrest. And that Bhima has just been pronounced dead.
On the surface I was functioning calmly and well. In fact I was numb, and for the first few weeks I lay on my sofa, unable to eat, curled up, thinking of Bhima. Then, one day, I heard his voice in my head saying, “Alison, life’s short and you’re alive now. It’s time to get in the best physical shape of your life.” He could be quite dictatorial when he wanted to be.
So I started running up mountains and past the rivers and lakes where Bhima and I had walked. And when the numbness thawed, instead of despair, I was surprised to feel a deep joy and an extra energy that I did not understand. And I knew that I wanted to live and love more fully than ever.
The only thing remotely like it, in my experience, is what happens during childbirth, which is excruciating, but without the pain you wouldn’t have the kids. Years before, I became friends with Archbishop Desmond Tutu who heard what had happened and wrote to me saying “Alison, I want you to know that I have asked God to find you another soulmate, and She said She is on the case. But first you must tell this story as widely as possible, because it will bring hope.” So I started writing and less than two years after Bhima died, performed “Grief… the Musical,” with music by Gary Schreiner, at the Great Barrington Public Theater. By June 2024 it had evolved into “Grief… A Comedy,” which sold out at Barrington Stage Company before heading to Edinburgh and the Soho Theatre in London, where it played to packed houses and high critical acclaim. Then I wrote a follow-up book called “Grief… A Comedy” (which is also an audiobook, read by me!) “Grief… A Comedy,” the book, starts six weeks after Bhima died, when he shows up at my kitchen table in the Berkshires, as charming as ever, determined to help me find love again.
It’s imaginary, of course. Or is it? A lot has changed since Bhima died. Now that I know how quickly life can go, I refuse to waste a minute of whatever time I’ve got left. So I try to put down my phone and pay full attention to the people and life around me.
Some things have stayed the same. I’m still in love with the Berkshires. Nejaime’s still sells me the best ginger chews in the land, Guido’s still makes Jess Express smoothies, I still hike up to Laura’s Tower, drink coffee at Stockbridge Coffee & Tea, and swim in Stockbridge Bowl.
These days, when I’m not outside or playing pickleball, my time is spent writing, narrating, and responding to people who tell me that my book is helping them find joy after loss. Some of them have told me that they too feel a continuing bond with their loved ones, who they also feel close by. “What is that, Bhima?” I whisper to the scientist I fell in love with.
“The answer, Alison, is renewable energy,” Bhima says. “And I don’t care if it’s the end of a long day. You must recycle everything.” So I did.
“Grief… A Comedy” is available in paperback, e-book, and everywhere audiobooks are sold.
alisonlarkin.com
