Don’t ask me why | I can’t explain
April 14th, 2004 byThe room is equipped with two tube lights in a mesh wired casing. One flickers on/off on/off on/off, a struggling attempt to stay lit, a struggling attempt to not die. The other tube light remains functional, shining brightly strongly unfaltering. That’s the first thing I notice and that’s what I’ll always remember.
The room is narrow, and long with a window on the far side closed. The bathroom door stands shut quietly next to it. Closer to the entrance door, i find two beds and a metal chair; one bed empty, one bed not. There’s a card stuck on the wall, exclaiming “Get Well Soon!” and my mother has placed the bouquet of flowers next to the pillows, next to the patient. My eyes slowly roam the wall, not wanting otherwise, no not yet. The paint is half peeled off, and old dust has settled in for its retirement, collecting pension from the passing dusty air. Lahore’s like that, dusty. You know it the second you land here. Overhead, the fan screechingly rotates at its high speeds, generating barely cool air currents. We sit quietly, conversations in gentle murmurs ongoing. The room is packed, and others stand/sit outside on benches.
My aunt lies on the bed, a thin shriveled figure, a saline drip attached to her left hand. She lies on her back, her feet resting in her bhabi’s lap, who massages them lovingly, caresses them unconsciously with her hands. Upon entering the room, I had lowered my head to her hands, and she touched my face with love and a smile sincere from her soul. Now, she had gone back to sleep, slipping in and out, in and out, there, there but never here.
We found out a month ago, someone explains to me.
It’s not even worth keeping her in the hospital anymore, someone else confides to my mother.
Five months, she tells me, her eyes asking me for a mercy which I could only raise my hands and beg for. Five months I’ve been in bed and I’m tired now.
Shh, shh, i whisper back to her. It’ll be over soon, you’ll go home soon and before you know it, you’ll be playing with your grandchildren. I leave such promises with her.
It’s stomach cancer in its last stage. My mother dares not ask how long the doctors have given her now. She barely eats, even water pains her. Her daily food consists of a glass of juice, if lucky. It’s terminal you see.
I stand with her 25 year old son. This is the 3rd time in my life I’m meeting him. I don’t know what to say. He smiles and asks me of my health, of my life. I don’t know what to ask him of his. Countless people had offered him duas, offered him strength. I could offer no more, but I could also offer no less. I exchange salaams with his father, who stood there so strong, so brave, so…unfaltering. I couldn’t help but notice.
Leaving the room for the gloomy hallway, one light kept flickering on/off on/off on/off, refusing to die, struggling to breath, its time not yet, its time almost met. The other light kept on shining steadily, one had to, one always has to. It’s the rule.
I’m numb. I’m in Pakistan for a reason.
I just had no idea I was here for so many reasons.
April 14th, 2004 at 4:24 pm
so sorry to hear about your aunt.
may Allah protect her and be merciful to her, in this life and afterwards.
may her family find their strength to support her, to support themselves.
may we all remember to whom we belong and to whom we return.
ameen.
April 17th, 2004 at 12:13 am
when i was nine i spent a long winter in sri lanka. it’s the only time i remember ever having being in my motherland as more than a tourist. a child’s memory was imprinted with events that blurred over the years, but never faded.
in a hospital situated in that lush jungle lay an old old lady who was my great aunt. what meant she to me, a child raised in another continent, another reality. while outside the jungle teemed with life and nailed life.
she was enshrouded in mosquito notes. they hung like veils around her, shielding her from the world, the world from her.
like wax her skin dripped off her face. in her old age she had become senile and she had somehow gotten hold of a match.
it was a long corridor lined with white-sheeted beds. rows of shrivelled brown bodies.
my mother leaned over her and said things, comforting things, soft touches. to my mother she was a person with a touch and words that were once hers.
she died soon after we left. two adults and three children. she was a something to a world i could never know.
years later my mother tells me stories of her own families and bodies begin to take on a shape. slowly i begin to know this great aunt and her blood now that she has been consigned – in my world – to a memory of flitting mosquito nets and age-old loneliness.
April 17th, 2004 at 2:45 am
I pray that your aunt finds peace and mercy and that Allah keeps her in kindness and receives her in kindness when it is time. Ameen.
April 17th, 2004 at 1:25 pm
Reminds you of your mortality, doesn’t it?
I’m glad she’s surrounded by people who love her. May Allah grant your family strength and sab’r, and may He have mercy on her soul.
April 17th, 2004 at 3:06 pm
Keep on shining bro.
April 19th, 2004 at 6:03 pm
Ameen! Take care inshaAllah
April 20th, 2004 at 9:38 pm
Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night
By : BOB DYLAN
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the lig
April 25th, 2004 at 12:08 pm
times when words do nothing
May 2nd, 2004 at 5:02 pm
I don’t understand why death is taken so tragically. Isn’t it a relief? Isn’t it a well deserved rest after long difficult test? Isn’t it something that all of us will face and none will escape? No, I am not heartless, and I don’t mean to offend.
But yes sometimes I wish I could be dead.