As I heard my cousin tell me this morning, "It's urgent", I could have asked him what urgency he is talking about. Maybe he would say he needed a phone number, or blood, or the name of the person in charge of my uncle's case, urgently. But I refrained from asking, and in a cool voice I said "Mom will be back in a moment". What happened next was inevitable. When I told mom that bhaiya called for her saying it's something urgent, she jumped on the last word and started hyperventilating. I calmly asked her to stop worrying as I was sure everything is fine, he just needs something urgently. I wasn't sure though. With a few Oh's and Oho's, I imagined nothing great has taken place, she never ceased to hyperventilate though, but it was the news of Mausaji passing away.
Not to brag about my greatness, or sound a little too impractical, but I used to pray for him everyday. And for some reason, I always prayed for his brain to be strong enough to control the poor state of his body. I don't really believe in God. I think our Brains have the potential to control the whole universe. What came as a shock to me was, that he died of brain hemorrhage. He had CMML, a close relative of Leukemia.
It is quite shocking though, as the last time I met him was around last week. On Wednesday, my mom said she is going to visit him and somehow, and thank God/Brain for that, I met him too. He seemed quite alright, with a little pain here and there. He was watching TV and making fun of a daily soap actress, who he called the Nirupa Roy of today. "I have never seen her smile", he said with a serious face. Today is Friday, 1 week and 2 days- his 61st birthday, and the day he passed away.
How he passed away was a terrible sight. On a ventilator, with any number of machines attached to his body, needles piercing through his skin. He had a pipe down his nose which he wanted to be removed, and since he couldn't speak, he was moving his hands fiercely, gesturing the doctors to remove it. After a few repetitions of his last attempts at trying to express himself, they tied his hands and feet to the bed. Not to mention that he was in an isolated ward, where family members could only visit for 1 hour every day, that too in a bodysuit that even covered their face, to prevent infection.
Thinking about it makes me scared, it makes me want to pray for his soul, and hope that he is in a better place now than that damned hospital bed. It wants me to do everything but cry. I thought my dad is a terrible person- he has a strange way of coping with bad news, he chuckles. But I don't know what is wrong with me now. I didn't even do that. I heard the news, tried to console my mom, went to office, did my work, even ate at a colleague's farewell party, and as my boss claimed, nobody even noticed anything wrong with my behavior today. I cancelled the graduation ceremony that I was supposed to go to tomorrow though, and when they asked for the reason and I told them, they started sympathizing and making sad faces, and all I could say was "Please don't be sad". Although maybe in some corner of my mind I do know that all they are doing is to give an appropriate response in an awkward situation, if I saw myself as someone else, I would call myself a cold-hearted person.
Not to brag about my greatness, or sound a little too impractical, but I used to pray for him everyday. And for some reason, I always prayed for his brain to be strong enough to control the poor state of his body. I don't really believe in God. I think our Brains have the potential to control the whole universe. What came as a shock to me was, that he died of brain hemorrhage. He had CMML, a close relative of Leukemia.
It is quite shocking though, as the last time I met him was around last week. On Wednesday, my mom said she is going to visit him and somehow, and thank God/Brain for that, I met him too. He seemed quite alright, with a little pain here and there. He was watching TV and making fun of a daily soap actress, who he called the Nirupa Roy of today. "I have never seen her smile", he said with a serious face. Today is Friday, 1 week and 2 days- his 61st birthday, and the day he passed away.
How he passed away was a terrible sight. On a ventilator, with any number of machines attached to his body, needles piercing through his skin. He had a pipe down his nose which he wanted to be removed, and since he couldn't speak, he was moving his hands fiercely, gesturing the doctors to remove it. After a few repetitions of his last attempts at trying to express himself, they tied his hands and feet to the bed. Not to mention that he was in an isolated ward, where family members could only visit for 1 hour every day, that too in a bodysuit that even covered their face, to prevent infection.
Thinking about it makes me scared, it makes me want to pray for his soul, and hope that he is in a better place now than that damned hospital bed. It wants me to do everything but cry. I thought my dad is a terrible person- he has a strange way of coping with bad news, he chuckles. But I don't know what is wrong with me now. I didn't even do that. I heard the news, tried to console my mom, went to office, did my work, even ate at a colleague's farewell party, and as my boss claimed, nobody even noticed anything wrong with my behavior today. I cancelled the graduation ceremony that I was supposed to go to tomorrow though, and when they asked for the reason and I told them, they started sympathizing and making sad faces, and all I could say was "Please don't be sad". Although maybe in some corner of my mind I do know that all they are doing is to give an appropriate response in an awkward situation, if I saw myself as someone else, I would call myself a cold-hearted person.
