In Loving Memory - 1 Month and 15 Days

My father was always a strong and active person. He was always springy. So when I saw my father in the last few months of his life, weak, tired and at times listless, I would be amazed and pretty taken aback because that was not Papa. I would some times wonder if my father was faking or exaggerating his lethargy because it seemed impossible that my father would be reduced to a shadow of his former self. He looked the same on the outside.

Although I talked of my father’s illness relentlessly to whoever might have the ear and heart for it; the treatment options, the procedures, the outcomes, the side effects, the “plan Bs”… deep in my heart, I tried not to let the illness define my father. He was always Papa to me.

StethoscopeI had always thought how pitiful and tragic the circumstance must be for families who had a sick family member. Yet, going through it, I never let it define our family. What we did was perfectly normal - hospitals were completely normal and untoward… clinic visits, doctors, nurses, medicines, pill boxes, chemotherapy, tubes, catheters, intravenous drips, lines, antibiotics, x-rays, blood tests, syringes, haemoglobin, white blood cells, platelets, transfusions, wards … people do this everyday, don’t they? It felt very normal.

As an outsider looking in, what did it look like? I am sure they felt a multitude of emotions - scorn, anguish, pity, sympathy, empathy, sadness, glee, gratefulness, relief, jealousy, envy, anxiety, caution, sympathy…just to name a few…

I never wanted people to pity our situation and most importantly, I never wanted people to pity my father or make him feel worse than he was already feeling. It was just too negative and at a time like this, we should only be positive.

I never wanted people to single out my father and make it seem as if he was abnormal, different and sick. It aggravated me when people would come visiting and stand at a distance or tower over my father while he was lying down because it meant they were well and he was not. I wished people could have acted more normal around my father. Some of them did and I have to thank them for it.

But then again, what was normal? I too, some times restricted people from going near my father because of his low immunity.

My father must have found this so difficult when people acted different around him. He acted as normal as he could when he had visitors and even though he was suffering, he put on a really brave face. I was thinking the emotional turmoil he must have gone through when he had to stay alone at the hospital at night. He must have gone through all kinds of emotions from intense fear to sadness and yet, he never thought of himself but his family, asking us to go home and sleep even though I am sure he would have liked our company.

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