Rama Rawal came to the United States in 1968, moving to Bridgeport, Connecticut, from Siddhpur, a town in the Indian state of Gujarat. Rama’s son Rajesh calls Siddhpur “a teeny tiny place, not on any maps.” There, Rama and her husband were elites: he worked as a lawyer and she taught English in a private school. But they came to the U.S. in the hopes of giving Rajesh and his brother, who were then 11 and 10 years old, more opportunities.
Rajesh Rawal: We came here in September 1968. It was actually September 13, 1968. And my mom would say Friday the 13th, which is what September 13, 1968, was a very lucky day for the whole family.
She worked at General Electric Company in Stamford, Connecticut, for 17 years. She was a personal accounting clerk. So, paperwork and stuff. My dad was an expediter in a factory, and my dad also worked part time at Cumberland Farms. Coming from being a lawyer and private school teacher and having “servants” and other help around the house, it was a big change. But it was really for the opportunity for the kids to have.
We came in ‘68. In ‘73, they bought the house in Stamford, Connecticut, and that’s the house that she lived in for the next 47-plus years, which she loved. She knew everybody in town, especially all the Indians. Anytime there was an Indian that landed, my dad or my mom would go across the street, introduce themselves, invite them to the house. They all remember my mom and dad as the people that took them in, showed them around, helped them out.
My mom was very adamant in maintaining her culture and her identity. We grew up vegetarian: no eggs, no meat, fish. She cooked every day. She wore the sari.
She also knew that if she didn’t do something, it would be forgotten. For example, even though she was a high school teacher teaching English in a private school in India, she refused to speak to us in English when we landed here, and only spoke to us in Gujarati — which is a state language from the state of Gujarat — because she didn’t want us to forget. I’ve been in this country 51 years, and I’m a red-blooded American in every sense. And yet, I remember my language because of my mom.
In May 2019, we moved her up to Vermont. She loved being with us in Vermont, but she would complain that there are no people, there’s no traffic. She’s like, “I don’t hear cars. I don’t hear people.” You know, “I miss that.” I said, you know, people pay money sometimes to have bigger property, and isolation and seclusion. She didn’t care for that. She was here living with us for about 11 months.
Her first fever was on the 20th of March. That went away on Sunday. But then she was feeling very tired. And then on Thursday, the 26th, she had a hard time breathing. I took her to the hospital on Friday morning. I basically dropped her off at the front door and waited in the car for four hours, and they finally told me that she was going to have to be admitted. So I came home, brought some stuff back to her, and they took her by ambulance to the main [UVM Medical Center] campus. I heard on Sunday that the Covid test came back positive.
She had a ton of people checking in on her. She has two brothers and two sisters, so they would call her. A ton of friends from Stamford, the neighbors, the people that she’s known for 30, 40 years — in some cases up to 50 years, from the day that she landed in this country.
Tuesday night, starting at about 10:30 or 11, I got a call from the doctor on duty saying she was having difficulty breathing. Then another call. And the third call was they had increased oxygen to maximum. She had started at two liters per minute. It had gone up to 15 by Tuesday night. Around 1 a.m. when the last call came, I got the family up — my wife and two kids — and we did a FaceTime with her. We sort of knew that this was the end.
She did not want a ventilator. She had told two of the doctors at the hospital, she had told me, and it’s in her living will, that she doesn’t want a ventilator. So I basically FaceTimed with her at 1:30 on Wednesday morning, and stayed on FaceTime with her through — I think Wednesday afternoon around 4:35 was her last breath. We talked to her, we played Indian prayers for her. My brother FaceTimed in from Chicago.
I felt sad that I couldn’t be there with her. And yet I knew why. So that’s why we did the FaceTime. She would look at me every now and then say, “Why are you still there? Why are you up? Go to sleep, you’re going to be tired.” I’m like, you know, to the last breath, she’s going to be my mother, right? And I just wanted to be there with her.
She was a fighter. She was a fighter for herself. But more importantly, she was a fighter for other people. A lot of folks came to her when they needed help, whether it was some personal issues, some financial issues, some other things. She ended up sponsoring her family and others into this country. She’s helped people start businesses by loaning them money. She’s donated to students in India and here, and to many causes.
Last year, she went to a global warming protest march in Burlington. Her objective was to fight so the children and grandchildren can have a better world. That’s the other aspect of her that I admire: being a fighter and not just sitting back and letting it pass by you.
Rama Rawal died at the UVM Medical Center in Burlington on April 1, 2020. She was 86 years old.
—As told to Mike Dougherty
Read more remembrances of Vermonters lost to the coronavirus.
