A Constant
If I were to take 20 minutes to tell you the horrible time that my family and I endured about 12 months ago, here's how it would sound:
According to the Hindu calendar, on the 31st of October 2005 it will be a full year since my beloved uncle's demise. It is hard to believe. Exactly 12 months to this day, I can say that there was nothing in the world which would've been a premonition of what was about to ensue. And yet the very thought of all of us cringed over how helpless we were still plays havoc in my head. They watched him die. I was here 30,000 miles away hoping that he'd live through it and come out unscathed. The cancer was killing him up in such an ugly fashion, it's still hard to fathom. A perfectly healthy man was falling apart, bit by bit. Losing his ability to walk, to stand, to speak. The chemotherapy was not helping. It angers me to see such torture subjected onto a man whose sole objective was to keep his family together, happy and safe. The fruit of all the innumerable number of sacrifices he had made throughout his life time were of no use.
It took all of three days for the disease to take its toll and then there was a hollow silence. On a Sunday afternoon, a shell of his remains lied still as half the town came to pay their respects to man who was a role model to many. The final walk from our ancestral home to a place where his remains would be consummated to a pyre. I was talking to my father on the phone as they waited for his mortal remains were brought from the hospital. My pa placed the phone next to his ear and told me to say something to him for the last time. I screamed and asked him to wake up and say its all a lie! It's not true! All I heard was the hollow silence. I cried, I screamed.
As for me, I do not write this every now and then to earn any sympathy. It's very hard. And all I can do is write. The last few days have been very trying. I wake up in tears almost every morning. I cant go to sleep without thinking of the most trivial moments I shared with my Pabamam. It is hard to let go, almost impossible. It's not that I want to let go, I want to remember him with a smile. Unfortunately each time I try, I am confronted by uncontrollable grief and complete helplessness. I cant spend a single hour without his thought. This is so hard. Spinning in my frustrations, I want to claw away all this pain if I could find a fold in all of this. I still want to wake up and think it's a very bad dream.
20 minutes..
According to the Hindu calendar, on the 31st of October 2005 it will be a full year since my beloved uncle's demise. It is hard to believe. Exactly 12 months to this day, I can say that there was nothing in the world which would've been a premonition of what was about to ensue. And yet the very thought of all of us cringed over how helpless we were still plays havoc in my head. They watched him die. I was here 30,000 miles away hoping that he'd live through it and come out unscathed. The cancer was killing him up in such an ugly fashion, it's still hard to fathom. A perfectly healthy man was falling apart, bit by bit. Losing his ability to walk, to stand, to speak. The chemotherapy was not helping. It angers me to see such torture subjected onto a man whose sole objective was to keep his family together, happy and safe. The fruit of all the innumerable number of sacrifices he had made throughout his life time were of no use.
It took all of three days for the disease to take its toll and then there was a hollow silence. On a Sunday afternoon, a shell of his remains lied still as half the town came to pay their respects to man who was a role model to many. The final walk from our ancestral home to a place where his remains would be consummated to a pyre. I was talking to my father on the phone as they waited for his mortal remains were brought from the hospital. My pa placed the phone next to his ear and told me to say something to him for the last time. I screamed and asked him to wake up and say its all a lie! It's not true! All I heard was the hollow silence. I cried, I screamed.
As for me, I do not write this every now and then to earn any sympathy. It's very hard. And all I can do is write. The last few days have been very trying. I wake up in tears almost every morning. I cant go to sleep without thinking of the most trivial moments I shared with my Pabamam. It is hard to let go, almost impossible. It's not that I want to let go, I want to remember him with a smile. Unfortunately each time I try, I am confronted by uncontrollable grief and complete helplessness. I cant spend a single hour without his thought. This is so hard. Spinning in my frustrations, I want to claw away all this pain if I could find a fold in all of this. I still want to wake up and think it's a very bad dream.
20 minutes..
posted by Shaking Shenoy at 10/30/2005 05:24:00 PM
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