I remember when I first found out that malignant cells were spreading inside my grandmother lungs. I didn’t cry or bat an eyelid. I froze.
Over the next few months as my grandmother suffered through small cell lung cancer and coughed up her rapidly dissolving lungs, I refused to acknowledge what was happening to her. I just stared vacantly into the distance until my eyes were red and my vision blurry. Even when her torment finally ended with her passing into the night, like Meursault in Camus’ L’Étranger, I refused to weep. Heaviness set over me as I consigned her body to the flames. I bit my lower lip until I drew blood. But I didn’t feel physical pain. I was cold and lifeless.
Still it comes. It never fails.
A few days later when all the immediate rituals had been performed and all the guests had left, a letter made its way from the U.S. I tore open the envelope and began reading. It was a letter informing me that I’d been admitted into a PhD program that summer. I still clearly remember being unable to finish reading the letter. I broke down and sobbed inconsolably.
And so the waves come crashing down on us. With marriage. With graduation. With a job or a promotion. On buying a house. With the first steps of an infant. With the scaling of every personal Mount Everest.
There is no unalloyed joy in this world, no hope, no freedom, no solace – once you have lost someone you truly love.
Who will pat us on the back when we do the right thing? Who will scold us when we go astray?
As we grow older will we be able to fill the shoes of those who taught us to walk? But how can we ever fill the shoes of those whose footprints remain etched permanently on soles?
And so we age. The furrows form. The hair grays. We wise up just enough to regret the passing of our innocence.
My better half sees her father in dreams in which she asks if he has taken his medicine. She awakens from such vivid visions disoriented. Disorientation soon gives way to somber mourning. The punishing ceremony repeats itself without fail. There is no respite.
Whoever said coping got easier with time was a liar.
Every remembrance reinforces a gnawing emptiness. The passing of every loved one brings back the unbearable burden of the loss of the cumulative.
Living in exile feeds into morbid fears easily, because deeply personal tragedies are conveyed through the cruelly impersonal telephone. Over time you begin to fret receiving any phone call from anyone you know. You assume that if no one can touch you, then nothing is disturbed. Everything is as you left it.
On weekends you call relatives up. Just as they state the plain truth that they are getting older, you either bluff your way through the conversation by telling them that nothing will ever happen to them or you berate them for not taking better care of themselves. The deception and the anger are your strange way of compensating for the impotence of not being able to do anything at all.
One day you are speaking to a loved one. The next day he or she is gone forever. You know that tomorrow it could be someone else. And the day after, it will be someone else. And one day it will be you.
And that will be that.
And so you focus on the precise. On the mechanical.
You roll back clocks at the designated hour. You neatly smooth over bed-sheets with your hands and tuck in loose ends. You sort laundry by color and material. You argue over wind chill and heat index. The time it took a certain batsman to score a century in his third test match. The average school-exam score for admission to a college you never attended. The price of onions today compared to what the price was ten years ago.
And in solitude you brace yourself for the next wave and the driftwood it will wash ashore without any sense of when it will strike.
milkmiracle.net 
So under that logic and rationalism, there is this too. Wonderful to read such a poignantly written personal account. Cheers.
Thanks.
Beautifully written.
Beautiful.
Beautiful
This is so beautiful..
Thank you silverlightgal, a_traveller, Krish Ashok, and Devina.
Anirban, this’s a gem of a post.Your pieces rarely stray into your personal life and that makes this a very special one.
It is heartfelt and beautifully written.
It took me a long time to even think about writing this as you can imagine. Thanks for reading. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.
Very very warm. Beautifully written.
Thank you.
This was gut-wrenching to read. Thank you for writing.
I dread calls from back home, especially the ones early morning in the US…..I hate them. Sometimes I feel like telling the caller to call back later so I’ll be more comfortable speaking about mundane matters like the weather.
There is no good way to get bad news, but getting it over the phone makes it seem unreal. I share your feelings.
Anirban,
I can certainly relate to your post in many ways. Not so much the loss of loved ones, but the dread of losing loved ones. My father was in the Indian Army, and he used to be posted in J&K and North-East during peak of insurgency. Every time he would leave for his post after a vacation, we- my brother and I- would wonder if he’d come back alive.
Thanks for writing
Thanks for reading… you have captured the sense of foreboding.
Poetry in prose… Thanks for sharing. It struck a chord.
Here are my thoughts on the subject:
http://naveen.bachwani.com/blog/2011/07/28/all-we-need/
Thanks for your comment.
Thank you Anirban…your words so neatly put that i feel like reading it over and over again.
Warm and touching right from title to the image of the driftwood to the finish.
i do share and agree…the loss stays but the mechanical life goes on. Probably that’s what they mean when they say about coping.
Here’s wishing you some cheer as you move on.
🙂
This post is so heartbreakingly succinct in describing the pain of loss that I don’t have much to add to it. ‘Time will heal’ – is a cruel advice for those in pain. Time only heals on the surface, but never takes away the emptiness.
Ah! Beautiful. I saw the post two days ago, but wanted to give myself some relaxed time to read this.
It flows extremely well and every word carries weight.
Brilliant!
Beautiful,so well written!So true about the calls………..
‘Life goes on’ we say…and in that process we go on…unnoticing ourselves…this post made me think and therefore my many thanks for that:)
Ten years ago , i lost my grandfather.And even today his memories are vivid.
“As we grow older will we be able to fill the shoes of those who taught us to walk? “…. every loss makes us stronger, harder, and wiser.. eventually we will part with what we have gained through the experience to the newer generation, new memories will form, and in the process the older ones fade into the deepest areas of your mind.
beautiful thoughts!
I could feel your pain through those words. nicely written. You have given me so much to think about
Wow, fantastic blog fmorat! How lengthy have you ever been running a blog for? you make running a blog look easy. The total look of your site is fantastic, let alone the content!
Thank you, very much.
wonderful writeup !!!
Thanks Shivani, Raja, TD, aapkimarzi, Raksha, runawaydoc, Anita, and ravindr for reading and commenting.
Do keep writing and sharing…………..
Bless you,
aapkimarzi
I have been reading your post over and over again. In a way it is helping me cope with the loss of my grandmother a few weeks back to cancer. I echo every word you say. Thanks for writing this. Beautiful.
I am very sorry to hear about your loss.
Thank you for your kind words.
Take care,
Anirban
I’m just going through this with my own grandmother. We found out about her cancer a little over a year ago, and for six months I was divorced from the world. Now I can cope with it, but every time I think about it for more than a second my entire body stops. Even breathing seems to stop.
Thanks for writing this. It helps to know youre not alone in going through these things.
It is very tough. I can vouch for that. All the best to you and your family.