March 19, 2016.
There are moments in life where logic has no meaning. And one such moments is death, the absolute certainty of it and the finality of it.
Gran ma passed away on March 19, 2016. And when I heard the news, the despair was all consuming. At that point, it was not about coping or standing strong, it was about mourning the loss of a person who had a significant impact on my life.
Right at this moment, twelve days after her demise, I am not really sure if I processed the pain. I feel a bit numb, with my brain functioning on and off. I keep going back to seeing her in the ice box, the look of peace on her face, one I had not seen, even in her sleep in as long as I remember. Death has finally given her peace, that which eluded her for quite sometime. While she rests in peace, her loved ones are dangling between relief and sorrow. One moment, it is a relief that her suffering is done and the other moment, is about questioning the sanity of that thought. The first couple of days have been overwhelming, the thought of not having a loved one around. After that, it was coping with the reality, accepting it and finding ways to overcome the despair that wants to drown me.
Every person has a different way of coping. I tend to relive the emotion that threatens to cripple me, over and over again, until I am numb. I get on with my day, focusing on what needs to be done, moving from one task to another, ignoring the longing for a quiet place to wallow. Most of the time, I cope quite well, but sometimes, I feel like I am standing on the precipice of a bottomless abyss. I stare at it long enough with no thought or feeling. It is like time has come to a standstill. I feel the conversations bouncing off me and the monotonous drone of everyday hustle in the background. And then, I realize the need to hold on to the sanity in me, and force myself to participate, to feel.
I should have been used to accepting death, having watched enough loved ones embrace it, to understand that death is as much a part of life as life itself. Yet, every loss brings the feelings of despair anew and threatens to whirl me like a tornado. For now, I cannot seem to overcome the grief. Amidst all the distractions, it hovers in the background, ready to pounce on me.
I would like to think that she has not suffered a lot of pain, for she did not complain about any. For over a period of ten years, she endured the loss of husband and son, both the losses depleting her and the rest of the family, the joy of a fully functioning family. While the loss of husband is acceptable, the loss of son has pushed her through unspeakable agony. She endured the suffering silently, losing one sense after the other - the sense of taste, the sense of hearing, the sense of clear sight and yet, she pushed for seven years, before the body finally gave up.
For me, watching her wither away was difficult to accept. She brought me up. She picked me up from school and endured my tantrums for silly nothings on our way home. She, who fed me sweet rotis before my evening hours of play and cooked my favorite foods, most of the time I turned up to see her, could not eat a whole meal in over two years and could not savor a meal for over three years. It was a slow, painful slip into a life of an invalid and watching her embrace death was crippling and relieving at the same time. While I can accept the death and even welcome it, the grief that accompanied it was like a blow to the shins. It is an extremely painful experience. Time will heal the grief, but the memory of the pain will remain.
Goodbye grand ma, rest in peace!! I love you very very much. Though your physical presence is no longer there, you are very much a part of me. I will miss you, very much.
