A Sunday

I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways.
— Rumi

Of all the nights I spent crying and talking to the ceiling above me, this night is special. Special because after howling for nearly an hour, I suddenly get up, switch on my laptop and start writing. And I have no clue why I am writing this, what I am going to share, or more importantly, where this post will eventually draw the line. Because I am too full tonight – completely shattered for the umpteenth time, disastrously shedding tears and definitely, out of my mind. And not too sure whether I can actually pen something worth reading at such moments of emotional saturation. But I must write. Don’t ask me why. I do not know. All I know is right now, I must write ‘something’.

My last interaction with my husband happened two days before he crossed over. It was his last Sunday on planet earth, and he was in the ICU monitored by an army of machines. Eyes wide open, staring at me like a child, he looked completely lost. He had stopped normal verbal communication, just a couple of words in the last few hours. I asked him whether he wants to see Guria, and he shook his head firmly, frowned and implied ‘no’. I could see him picking on the sheet that covered him, there was too much unrest within, yet he had no energy left to express how he felt. He was going. The closure had begun. I, tried being the rock, and though I could see my world falling like a pack of cards, I continued talking to him. What else could I do? I just wanted him to hold on, and told him so. And he nodded. He wanted to hold on so badly, I know. Remember telling him, ‘how will I live without you. Do you think that I can?’ To this, came his last conscious response. Tilting his head to the right, he blinked his tired eyes and assured me, ‘yes, you will, you can'. 

I stood there like a stone. I should have cried because I realized he was so sure he was leaving, or maybe I should have smiled and told him ‘shut up, you are not going anywhere’. But I couldn’t do any of these. I simply hugged him and said nothing. I couldn’t. I was not thinking anymore. His answer paralyzed all my questions.

In a few hours, he was in deep coma.

But how could I forget that face? Helpless. Those eyes that could not even take the stress of a blink. Those fingers, purple and shriveled. That tilt to his right to confirm he knew, he will never ever go home. He knew, we will never talk again. He knew what ‘never’ meant.

That particular Sunday is, and will remain etched in my soul, as long as I live here. Without him. There is no escape for me. None. For I have seen his body closing, cell by cell, with each passing hour. I have seen his pulse reach as low as ten per minute. I have witnessed his final closure when the flat ECG declared I have lost him. I will have to live with these images. That’s where it hurts. Too much.

At times, I ask the skies, where is he now. Is it all over for him? Or, is he somewhere? Around us, or at some other level of consciousness? When I cry, does he see me? I don’t want him to. Or maybe, a part of me, does. Is he aware of all the letters that Guria writes to him, and hopes he will come when she sleeps and find them under her pillow? Is he watching his girl grow into this amazingly sensitive daughter who pens her mind and believes he is reading? Where is he? Is he listening? All questions of a wounded bosom.

I think we all have some quota of pain assigned to us, which we must bear in this life. So, the next question that stabs my mind often on weaker days is, is this all that was kept for me? I hope my share of pain is over. You know why? Not because I hope to spend the rest of my life in merriment. I do not dare to hope for something so rosy and smooth anymore. But because, I feel any other misery or pain will make me forget what I am going through right at this moment. 

For me, forgetting all his struggle for a normal healthy life means, forgetting him. And I do not trust myself on surviving a moment without remembering how he fought. How he nodded on his last Sunday each time I pleaded, ‘please hold on’.

This is the seventh month of my new ‘life’. A life where I stumble too often… walk, rarely… run, wish I could. Nearly seven months into an existence that is as new to me as life is to a newborn. And just like it needs weeks, months, years to learn new things one by one, I am hoping I will too. Learn to live this new life gradually. Maybe start walking in a few months, and then perhaps someday, as I grow up, I will learn to laugh with all the dormant muscles of my heart contributing to that laughter. Yes, one night, I shall have the best sleep. One day, I will spend hours by the sea and not shed a tear. One day, I will smile at the birds as they fly over me. To new shores. One fine Sunday, I will find him, amidst polite strangers in a park, greeting me with a warm ‘hello’.  

One day, I will live. Rather, start living.

If you have read this far, I must thank you. For being so patient with me and my tears that never stop drizzling these days. Incessant, they shower on rooftops on cloudy, lonely nights. Take shape as words and compel me to pen them before you, baring it all, endlessly, again and again. If you have read this far, I am indebted to you for life. For being one of those very few who will pause for a while, and think of the man who continues to live through my pen.

Thank you. For being one of those very few who, on having reached the end of my post, would wish, I had written some more.

Stay well. Always.

The Angel without Wings

আমার সকল দুখের প্রদীপ জ্বেলে দিবস গেলে করব নিবেদন--
         আমার   ব্যথার পূজা হয় নি সমাপন ॥
যখন বেলা-শেষের ছায়ায় পাখিরা যায় আপন কুলায়-মাঝে,
         সন্ধ্যাপূজার ঘণ্টা যখন বাজে,
তখন আপন শেষ শিখাটি জ্বালবে এ জীবন--
         আমার   ব্যথার পূজা হবে সমাপন ॥

I was scribbling my mind with random thoughts and emotions for the last few days. Gathering those momentary mood-offs, unshed tears, choked bosom to sculpt something readable. Something that moves a few hearts, touches a few chords here and there, maybe. So here I go, sculpting once again, to create something new out of the oft recycled emotions of my life, at present.

Some close ones tell me that I am a very strong woman. They feel after all that I have been through and am still facing everyday, keeping your chin up is a feat in itself. Is it so? I doubt. As I wonder, did I really have much of an option but to hang on? Did I really have the luxury (if I may call it so) to sit and cry? No, not when you know there is another life depending on you, totally, for everything. In fact, in the last six months, (yes it is nearly six months since he left my visual plane) I have waited for my daughter to sleep so that I can lighten the terrible storm that ran havoc within. I still do. Wait for her to sleep so that she doesn’t  see me crying. Do not want her to feel helpless.

There have been moments when I failed to stop my tears in her presence. But then, I always try to be the strong ‘mamma’ she would love to see me as. As it is, she too has a lot to handle. A lot seems an understatement. At an age, when a child’s world is all about her mom and dad, my baby has to adjust to the ‘only-mamma-and-no-papa’ idea. She must. And she strives not to let me have the faintest idea of her longing, her confusions on why she couldn't see him in the last six months. Yes, my six year old tries to hide everything beneath her mischiefs, her jokes, her cartoon shows, and her laughters, that pour on me like sunshine with an effort to wipe off every muddled streak of gloom from my eyes, even if for a while.

In the last two years, she has seen her papa in and out of her universe a bit too often. She seemed to understand everything even before I explained. Understood why we couldn’t give her the time she needed, why she had to stay away from both mom and papa for months, why she was supposed to sit quietly and watch cartoons while the ambulance waited for her papa to leave her space again and again, why her mamma would be so busy with things that never allowed her to tell her princess a story at bedtime… she fathomed it all. And with what effortlessness!

She could have cried, yelled. She could have stopped me from running to the hospital everyday, fought with me when I returned late, or simply brood over her mamma not chatting her to sleep. She could have simply refused to do her home work with her mamma not around. She could have, as is expected from a four year old. But she didn’t. She never complained. Never. As if she knew, how serious things were, how tough each day was becoming, for her dad and mom. And she simply, complied. What would you call that? Strength? No. Something much beyond that.

And the last six months.

Completely without half of her world. Without a single call from her dad. And she is still doing her best. To comply with fate. We all must, you may say. But isn’t it terribly gnawing when your little one keeps talking about the times spent with her dad, but never for once even hints at how she feels about not seeing him anymore? Yes, because she is too little to express what is bothering her. What her loss is. And why life treated her this way. She is just so little, my child.

So that’s it. Talk of stoic acceptance without complaining, and this little one will show you how. And it breaks my heart each time I see her look through the photo albums, stare at her papa for a while, and then move on, as if she has gauged it all. As if she knows pictures are all that remain. Of half of her once, complete world.

On the very bad days, I complain all day. On why this happened, why me, why us, why him, why? I cry a lot when I am alone. I cry when I listen to songs that stab me brutally with memories. I cry when I think of our wedding day. I cry when I look at a shredded me in the mirror. I cry when I read about souls coming down as rain, and then, when it rains. Yes I do. Because I am human; am yet to imbibe her angelic calm. She is exemplary, unique, precious, a gift to everyone who knows her, a treasure for anyone who’s around her. Born with this amazing ability to do things that will make you smile, and finally, laugh.

Another very endearing thing about my little girl is how she can spend hours with herself. Playing, reading books, dressing up as a teacher, then teaching her imaginary set of students, painting and so on. She knows how to keep herself company when mamma is too down to talk. She knows. I wonder how. I wonder why she adjusts to my grief, when she can simply pout and immediately, get my attention. But she never does. As I said, as if she knows. Knows it all. All the lessons life’s been teaching her since she was four. By heart.

You learn as long as you live. At least that is how it should be, I feel. I am learning new chapters everyday - reading faces, reading all that lies over and beneath facades, reading books on healing, reading about death, and about people fighting it and about some, who lost. And some, who are like me, struck cruelly by death, wounded, gasping, but still alive. It is so relieving when you find you are not alone. There are countless out there grieving, and many more who have crossed the grief stage. The reasons may differ, but the very fact that they are still fighting for a better life, helps.  

It is okay to feel like a loser when things go wrong. It is the only normal. It is fine to feel miserable and sad beyond measure when things do not go your way. It is completely natural to break down and cry all night, or all day, trust me. Whatever helps. Because we are simple human beings, vulnerable, scared of failure, scared of losing what we assume, we own. Tears do not define a failure. Holding them back for fear of appearing weak, IS failure. Cause then you deny what you are feeling. Which means you are denying yourself the opulence of your own wealth of emotions. What could be more defeating than fooling your own self with a wall of ‘i-am-always-fine’ masquerade?  

Cry when you must. Minutes, hours, days, nights. I am doing so, for, don’t remember how long. But then, that is how my bleeding core heals. Cell by cell. And someday, I shall have a heart that has no visible wounds, maybe some deep brown scars, here and there. That too, faded.

Take your time. This life is yours - so obviously, the time you get to spend in it, is yours as well. Your tears tell your story, a prolific story that can never be replicated, cause it belongs to you alone. But once the tears are spent, get up, make some tea, cringe your eyebrows as you face the sun, and then tell yourself, ‘this too shall pass’. I do. Treaded six long, dark months promising myself this everyday.

You may wonder why I started off with my daughter’s exceptional fortitude and then gave in to the power of tears in healing. Precisely because I wanted to share with you the story of a little girl who never cries for a papa she sees no more, whom she has seen so little of, just about five years. She has moulded her tears into pristine prayers for her papa to be fine, wherever he is. So what if she can't see him, her only prayer is, he should be fine and happy. 

In spite of all the hurt and tears, I draw strength from her selfless prayers. Everyday.  

And I am sure, you will too.