|
Metro Plus
What's left is memories
|
It is not easy to reconcile oneself to death, when loved ones are abruptly snatched away. Yet, despite the poignant memories that linger, one must pick up the threads of life and move on...
|
IT ALWAYS happens to someone else, or so you think. The tragedy of death. You commiserate with those who face the irreparable loss and your heart is squeezed.
Nevertheless, somewhere inside is the relief that it had not happened to you, and you float on the feeling of being forever protected against calamity. Alas, no one is really protected from life's strange vicissitudes...
Without warning, in one fell swoop, the inexorable axe of death separates you from the one you love more than life itself.
A slow numbness spreads, beginning from your brain to the rest of your body. In an incomprehensible waking dream, you are as it were insulated from reality. You go through the motions mechanically, the last rituals, looking at the stream of people coming over to condole you, listening to the clichés which you expect people to say, and staring at them with disbelief when they don't. "You have got to be brave." "Time is the best healer." "If there is anything you need, we are here for you."
One part of you is touched by their kindness and caring. Another part screams hurt when people lack sensitivity. When they ask probing questions.
What really happened? How could you let her go? You, who are educated, who knows so much? Could not the medical care have been better? How is so and so taking it?
It is the Indian way of showing concern. You cannot blame them. They all mean well, every one of them.
Every single detail that led to the ultimate end is etched so finely in your mind. What you talked about. The dreams and the future. The smiles and the tears. How you tried to keep the visitors at bay. How they would sneak into the ICU for a seemingly last look. How your insides burned to have them see your loved one with tubes all over the body. Did it give them pleasure to have a look? Was that the sight they hankered for?
"Well meaning" relatives who had the "right" to look in, could never be put off, however much you pleaded for privacy.
However much you pleaded that in the battle for life she be left with some shreds of dignity.
Shock and disbelief surge through your being, when you are told she is gone. You can't even cry, because it did not happen. Someone else is laid out, someone else cremated, the loved one is there in another room, sure to come out smiling, and soon... People come in droves or so it seems.
No room is large enough. Did one really know so many people, or are they all strangers, acting out a part in a movie? You cringe, as the blackness takes over. There is no day or night.
They silently file past, and say the right things to you, as you hang your head, ashamed for being alive, for being hungry, for wanting to sleep and to go through all the motions of life, in a search for normalcy.
You freeze as they wrest the physical body from your tender clasp, and agonise to hear that her ashes are scattered over the holy rivers, into water that she was always a part of, into the outdoors where she really belonged.
You search desperately for her astral body.
And then you break down. Your cry from the depths of your soul is never heard. Because it is soundless. Enough, enough, please don't speak to me, let me lay my head down, let me die, let me go.
Never mind if you go in and out of hospital. You need to get back into the mainstream of life for the living.
The dead are gone; it is a tribute to the living to help them get on with their lives. The living need you! Please don't let go. Look at so and so; her tragedy was worse than yours, see how she manages. You don't care about so and so. Your grief is unique to you and you alone, and it is your pain that you care about, how you will deal with it, how you will have to work your way through it.
Why me? You ask yourself... Why not you? Pat comes the answer. Look around you. People have lost their entire families! Did you not hear about the earthquake in Bhuj? And what about September 11?
And then start the sleepless nights. If only, you tell yourself, she was here. If only we had done that. If only we had done this. If only we were there. The saddest two words, and the most painful... "if only". Regret, bitterness, guilt. The emotions cascade over you like waves. Grief stabs your body in hot pain. The dam bursts. You cry till you have no tears to shed. You go through desolation and black depression. You cannot focus on things which were so dear to you just months ago.
Nothing ever matters any more. There is no meaning to anything. You go through the motions of daily life with mechanical rigidity. The spark of life which people found so attractive in you, has gone, maybe forever.
You lose interest in living. How you look, or how you dress. The long line of visitors dwindles and there is a strange emptiness, for they too have been part of your daily routine. You are finally left alone with your thoughts and your desolation and you plod on, wondering if there is any light at the end of the tunnel.
Somewhere out of the blue, you hear a voice, "I am just here with you, though you cannot see me. I love you, and I want you to carry on as you always have. I am watching over you... " You hear it again and again. The tide turns. You see the familiar smile, the mannerisms and her voice in the children, and you know it is a miracle, and it is a message... Petal fresh memories linger with their own brand of fragrance, of happy times. You learn to shape your lips into a smile.
Before you realise it, you are looking at the first anniversary. Friends and loved ones call, write or visit you, to say they remember. Flowers fill the house. You cry unabashedly, at every single memory that unfolds. Anything triggers it... a particular piece of music, a smell or even a colour. You lean heavily on people who have been there for you, through the year, who have nurtured you tenderly, helping you hold your head aloft, motivating you to live and not sink into abysmal gloom.
After the enormous tidal wave, calm slowly sets in. Not an uneasy calm but a resigned peace thanks to discipline, meditation, the solace of religion and submission to the inevitable. Knowing that your loved one is halted at a time when she was beautiful, robust with health and youth, and realising she will always be so eternally, at least in your memory. A calm is born out of a knowledge that she is at peace and that her karma in this life is fulfilled, and that she responded to a higher calling. Knowing she is there for you, to be summoned at will and she continues to live in the people who love her.
The voice sounds again. This time it is gentler, and more persuasive.
"Move on, as you always have. Don't let this stop you. I am there if you have eyes to see. Look at this as one more challenge met, one more lesson in life, which has to be learnt. Look after the family I have left behind. They are in your trust. Move on."
And yes, you move on... But you wipe your tears first as otherwise your path is blurred.
SABITA RADHAKRISHNA
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
|
