Amma is gone. But she was right there, with us in our lap. Her eyes were not moving, they were still. Her mouth was open, and her arms would fall down if you'd not hold them. We rushed her to the hospital; the doctors didn't say anything. They put her on some machine and minutes later declared her dead. She was lying there, lifeless.
She was brought back. A relative asked me to put some water of the holy Ganges in her mouth, I did that. Then some Tulsi leaves were put in her mouth. People were coming, there was a crowd. She was laid on ice slabs. Aunts were coming from different cities. I don't know who informed them and how.
What happens to your body when you're far away from your aging parents, getting your daughter back from school, and your phone suddenly rings and you're informed that your mother is no more.
I look at Amma's face. Lifeless face. Her hairs are white from the roots till some length and then they are black. All her teeth are intact. Seventy-three is a good age to go away; she lived a whole life, was on her legs when she went away. I hear people saying things.
I sit near her head. I want to kiss her cheeks, her forehead, comb her hair and tie them in a bun. I used to do this. She loved it when I oiled her hair; she had an itchy scalp, so she'd ask me to use my nails while oiling.
Incense sticks are lit under her bed. Outside our home, some cow dung cakes are burnt. Two of our neighbours who were very dear to her, like her daughters, were bringing tea and water from time to time. Women from our village were asking to check the planetary positions at the time of her death.
My mother was weeping. She had lost her mother-in-law whom she loved like her own mother, maybe more. My brother and I were not able to look each other in the eye. We know she loved us a lot. She'd very proudly tell our accomplishments to women she'd talk to.
How do you live without a family member, somebody you've seen around you throughout your life? You have some facial features like theirs, some of your habits are exactly theirs, your lexicon has words only they used, you learnt Awadhi because they talked in it. And then they'd be left in stories. You'd see the world go by at its pace, people laughing and talking and joking around, and your heart getting torn by all the grief you'd been accumulating.
When left alone, I revisited the texts I had read on grief. In Chekhov's The Lament, Iona wants someone to listen to him. He's filled with grief and he thinks talking to someone would ease him out. In Notes from Grief, Adiche wants to be left alone with her grief. I don't know what exactly I want.
I loved her a lot. There were days when she was in our village and we wouldn't talk for many days. But now she's not there, so every moment I have this realisation that I wouldn't hear her again, that she wouldn't stop me from doing anything. She'd not tell me that one needs to spend wisely whenever there's a parcel for me, or that you shouldn't apply all sorts of chemicals on your face, or trust people easily, or more such things.
The person who was binding a family is now gone. I see people shouting at every small thing; they don't know how to process their anger. Grief is taking a toll over me. Grief's covering me from head to toe. I feel suffocated from within. I have cried enough, now I just feel sad.
When I look at others, at this world functioning as it is, I realise that people were right when they said the world doesn't stop functioning after the loss of one person. I lost my Amma and my world has stopped functioning. People talk sense and I look at their faces. I would have done the same had I been at the explaining end, but now I am being explained.
People are mostly good, she was also good. But she was different. She was dying slowly each day from the past five years and three months since my grandfather died. She was very confident that she would outlive him, as she was the one who was mostly sick, diabetic and a heart patient.
When he passed away, she felt betrayed. How could he leave her alone after such a long life filled with love and respect? After her health issues, he had made it his priority to leave no stone unturned for her treatment. After him, she decided that she didn't want to live anymore, so she'd pray to unite with him every day.
I'd shout at her and tell her to think about us. If he's not there, her entire family is. But she didn't care. She said nothing matters anymore. I was selfish. After losing my grandfather, I was scared. I told her that if popping pills helps you to live longer, then just keep on doing that, but just continue to live.
She was not particularly sick. She used to be sick, but we had seen her at worse. There were days when she used to be admitted to the hospital. We rushed her in the middle of the night, praying to God to save her.
This time, half an hour before she left, we took her to the hospital and we were told that her vitals were okay, she was fine, and she had mild viral fever and she'd be okay within three days. But then once she was home, she looked tired. We misinterpreted her tiredness to live as general tiredness.
There was no sign of pain on her face. I gave her some medicine, she drank it. She was in the bathroom. Suddenly her mouth was open, her eyes were strange. She was in my father's lap. She stopped breathing.
I saw death in front of my eyes. My Amma was no more. We rushed her to the hospital knowing she was no more. Amma was no more. She was gone forever. Just like that. It is this easy.
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