Dr. Goher Irani died June 30 of this year at Meherazad after a lingering illness, leaving an aching hole in the lives of many of us.

She had been one of the warmest, most loving, most comforting of the mandali at Meherazad for all the years that most of us Westerners had been going there. When we got sick, she was there, with her stethoscope, her pills, her cool, comforting hands. When a day came that we were told it would be better to see a doctor in town (no one told her of course) because there were so many of us, guess what? We didn’t recover as quickly from our ailments, minor as most of them were.

Yes, something was missing. We knew it and she knew it and when she found out, she built up quite a head of steam over our being redirected, so to speak. And there was no sight in the world like Dr. Goher under a full head of steam. I expect that’s the way she was as well over all the years when she was responsible for Baba’s care, and took that responsibility with such unstinting devotion.

After Meher Baba dropped his body in 1969, it wasn’t until the fall of 1971 that I went back to India. There weren’t many westerners visiting then so there was a great deal of informal time with the mandali at Meherazad. I have never forgotten one day sitting with Goher on the floor of her small dispensary (pre-clinic) while she mixed medicine with a mortar and pestle. We were talking, of course, about Baba and with great fierceness in her voice she said, “People say He’ll be back in 700 years, but He’ll look different then. I want Him here, I want Him now and I want Him the way He was!” I couldn’t have agreed with her more.

I heard about Goher’s passing the morning of June 30 just as a friend was about to drive me to our local hospital for an outpatient procedure. From the moment I heard the news until that procedure was over, I felt Goher’s presence, her comforting hand on my shoulder, on my head. One of the many gifts from Meher Baba and his mandali for which I shall ever be grateful.