How much more?

Pic Credit: My Own Personal Collection

Silence at nights brings a lot of things into perspective. Like the fan which works without a sound during the day suddenly seems noisier. Or, you vividly see that lost key lying in that top right drawer of your closet where you don’t even remember putting it in the first place. Even the eureka moments on relationships come during those still nights when you and your thoughts are in a tight embrace. Yes, silence at nights bring those rare moments of consciousness that otherwise get lost in the cacophony of life.

Today sitting in the attendant’s bed in a hospital while my mom lays with a cast on her leg I suddenly feel so calm. But you know what I’m not calm at all. If anything, I’m so far away from it that the only thing I want to do is scream at the top of my voice. So loudly that the angst inside leaves me forever! I think it’s the 6^th night in a span of two months that I see my mother in the hospital bed as I look towards the doctors for her recovery.

Two months. It has been two months since doctors and hospitals became a part of our routine with my parents being sick suddenly. But I held on. We all held on because we knew once the treatment would be over it would all be fine. Of course, we were scared but then we pulled together even stronger. And finally the 60 odd days of ordeal was over and we were looking forward to better times. But no, someone up there had other plans. And I detest him for it.

My mom was so happy leaving for home yesterday. She had been missing it so much. We all like to live in places where we have a friend’s circle or something to do. Right? She had hers back home and wanted to get back to it at the earliest. But fate, luck or destiny, call what you may decided to punish her for harboring that simple wish of going back home. She fell down during security check at the airport and fractured her knee cap. Now tomorrow in less than a month’s time she has her second surgery scheduled. How is this fair? In which dimension is it fair? I really don’t know! I feel my family is trapped in a vicious circle of ill-health.

I don’t know what the universe wants. I really don’t. I feel helpless when I see how depressed she is. ‘What ifs’ and ‘Whys’ come out as she sees her fractured leg. And seeing her I can’t help but feel the same. Why her? I don’t think I ever heard her wishing for anything bad for anyone, even for those who were and are mean to her. Still she has to suffer so much. She has not even fully recovered from a major surgery and now there’s another one scheduled. I just don’t know how she’s bearing all this. I really don’t. My family is shaken but we have to rally around each other. We have to but this time without looking up for any assistance because whoever it is above seems to be a sadist who deserves not an inch of my faith.

So as I was saying silence and night brings some vivid realizations. Today I realize that a second can alter lives in ways unimaginable. It’s not that I didn't know this but it is only today that I understand it. the clarity of it all is at a different level today. A person well on her way to recovery today lies on a hospital bed again. Why? Because of something that went wrong within a second, a fraction of a second. Of-course, I also understand today that I’m not as strong as I would have liked to be. I feel shattered because I really thought that at least for sometime the ordeal my family was going through health wise was over. Well, clearly it wasn't!

I don’t know what lies on the other side of this dark night. I don’t even feel strong enough to hope for anything. I just feel suffocated just like my mother does. I just wish I could turn back time and prevent this from happening. I just wish the puppeteer above had a heart. But then with catastrophes around the world these days I should know better than hope for it. Again another realization in the stillness of this night!