Handling death

One lives through many life-changing events in a single lifetime. It is immaterial whether they are good or bad, what is all-important is the way you handle them. I did not handle my father’s death very well. I did not handle living very well either. No one is equipped by birth to handle trauma such as death with a calm demeanour and spirit and yet I was more devastated than I thought possible. It was an expected death not the kind that takes you by surprise like a flash of lightning. And yet I ended up missing the chance to say farewell to a much-loved father.

He was a six foot tall, unrelentingly cheerful figure who weighed a hundred kilos before he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. Prostate cancer by itself is one of the most successfully treatable forms of cancer but in his case it had spread to the spinal cord by the time he was diagnosed and he was already partially paralyzed. The first emergency procedure offered some relief and the tumours were on the wane for a while. He had limited mobility and looked like a shadow of his former self. Mortality was a constant threat to the man who believed in living life to the fullest. Yet he was happy enough in the company of his daughters, son and the grandchildren who had no inkling of the sombre feelings that lay just below a brittle veneer of cheer.

A few months later however the cancer hit back with a vengeance and a second and more serious operation did not help. He lay paralyzed totally from the waist down and was brought to Bangalore where I lived so I could take care of him. Initially I had hopes that he would recover at least partial mobility but as the days passed and he himself realized that there was no possible progress to be made, the house became like a funeral home. I had a one year old son whose colic kept me up every single day from 12 to 3 in the morning. I had to cope with watching the strongest figure in my life, the one who made lifting any burden look easy, struggle with pain and the shame and indignity of dependence on the rest of us for his most personal tasks.

I regret beyond words not being able to support him mentally during that time. I had visibly given up hope. After six months of taking care of him, I was a wreck myself. My elder sister lived abroad and my younger brother was still in college. My mother would sit and cry most of the time. I had no emotional reserves left and yet I could’ve been softer towards the gaunt figure who lay on his bed, turning partially so he could look out the window as the world went by without a second thought.

I cannot turn back time and make his last days relatively happy. He was very proud of me and kept insisting that of all his children only I could face difficult situations head-on and yet deep inside I knew I had let him down by losing faith. For more than my father’s death, what changed my life was the complete loss of the faith I felt in God whom I had been brought up since infancy to believe in. My father was an ardent devotee of our Ashram and guru and he took solace from the fact that his faith would protect him. I, who till then had the faith to close my eyes and agree to marry a guy I had never seen just because of my guru’s assurance had completely changed into a cynic who refused to think that any God could justify inflicting so much pain on a good human being.

I have never fully regained the faith I lost when my father passed away back in his own house in Kerala three days after he left my house and before I could say goodbye. Death takes its toll and the accompanying grief itself is difficult to bear but to completely lose faith in the way of life that I was brought up with was perhaps the bigger loss. All the years since my father’s death, I have lived with eroded faith and no belief that things will turn out well – a fear has since then found its way to my heart – that anything could at any moment be snatched away from me and I will yet again not have a chance to say goodbye.