Five years
since maa breathed her last and I am often pulled back to those last days I
spent with her in the hospital. Since then I have, unfortunately, witnessed one
more death in the family and several others in the extended family and friend
circle. I have witnessed last interactions in some cases and in others have
heard the survivors who succeeded the deceased lament about how they would have
behaved better had they known.
Having lost
my father at a young age and not having very happy memories of my last
interaction with him—he was hallucinating on my last visit to his bed in the
hospital. He did not recognise me, his 15 and half years old daughter but kept
calling out foar my brother who was just 5 and a half. My teenage heart could
not forgive his hallucination-induced forgetfulness for the longest time. And
as I grew older I spent many a days wondering what I could have done
differently to make that last meeting a meaningful one for me.
As clichéd
as it sounds, much later in life, I read somewhere—maybe in an SMS or email
forward or a self-help book—that ensure that your goodbye/farewell is sweet
because you never know if that is the last time you’ll be talking to that
person. It stayed with me. To the extent that even after heart breaking fall
outs with former friends/colleagues, I spent my last day in the company
treating everyone and leaving heartfelt thank you notes for all of them.
I am glad
that the sentiment of having meaningful goodbye stayed with me when the doctors
told us that maa would not be leaving the hospital alive. Akshat and I took
turns sitting by her side in the ICU. We massaged her feet and hands lightly,
applied thick layers of moisturiser to her limbs as that was the only thing
that gave her some relief. I made an effort to dress up smartly for my daily
visits to the hospital because all my life maa had laid a lot of stress on me
dressing up smartly. She would say, if you dress up smartly to meet someone, it
shows them that you are giving them importance and value them. Even now, half a
decade since she’s gone, I still make an effort to dress up smartly for
occasions that are and people who are important to me. She loved looking at the
sky and trees, so we requested the hospital staff to move the position of her
bed in such a way that she spent the last days looking outside the window.
Five years
ago Akshat and I and all of my mother’s Twitter friends were trying hard to
fulfil her wish to meet Shah Rukh Khan. There were online comments by strangers
saying they did not understand why a 60-year-old dying woman wanted to meet
SRK. How come her children were not bothered about keeping her alive and
battling cancer and were instead focusing on reaching the message to SRK. I am
sure offline too people, we know and love, must have wondered the same, even
though they maintained decency and never asked this of me to my face.
It was a
genius masterstroke by mother. And I wish more children in our shoes are as
lucky. Why do I say that? Well, we spent our time trying to figure out how we
could help realise her dream, her last wish, rather than sitting and crying and
anticipating dooms day scenarios. She gave us a task which seemed impossible to
achieve, so we put in all our energies to accomplish it. Through it all we
learned that:
1. If we set our mind to it, we could
achieve anything! Even getting SRK to record a video message and then call to
talk to her.
2. We can rely on people, known and
unknown. We won’t be alone even with her gone. We miss her but we are not
alone.
3. When it seems that you cannot change
a situation, get busy doing something constructive.
4. We must employ all the tactics in
our arsenal if we really want something. And we will be rewarded.
5. Being nice pays in surprising ways.
She was nice to people on Twitter. Be it being nice while RTing beautiful
images or sentiments, knitting sweaters for babies of her Twitter friends,
sharing daily, blurry updates from her small green patch or penning a thread on
why she liked people from different regions. She went viral because she was
nice on Twitter. And because she was nice, everyone who interacted with her
rallied to spread her last wish to the point where the story was picked up by
news outlets and finally reached SRK’s team.
Even if
your last interaction with your parent was not something that you are proud of
or happy about it’s not too late. Be nice to your siblings, spouse, in-laws,
children, help, co-workers. Even if they are in the wrong, even if you think
you know better. Fight if you have to but be nice. If either one of you is
staring at death, you won’t remember all the times you proved a point or won an
argument. Trust me, you will regret not being nice when you had a chance.
