Where have all my prayers gone? Where have all my tears gone?” I wondered in mindless misery. I remembered Omar Khayyam: “That inverted bowl we call the sky/ Where under crawling coop’t we live and die/ Lift not thy hands to it for help/ For it rolls on impotently as thou or I”.
Nothing can be more devastating than the reminder that people come and go and the universe looks on in indifference at the termination of the relationship of a lifetime. We grew up in an organisation we worked for; we grew in different ways and hung up our boots. Our marriage was like any other—landscapes of beauty with sad downhill patches and calm quiet vales where acceptance brought its own sense of serenity. He was a husband who was a friend and philosopher, good cheer and wise counsel.
Retirement brought with it not its blues but a quiet elation that we were at last on our own, not chasing deadlines and speeding through life. Mornings saw us leisurely reading newspapers, and favourite novels that merited a reread, and brand new novels at the top of bestseller charts with cups of tea that spelt camaraderie. Kitchen time was companionable time—we dabbled in our fancies with the result sometimes good and at times not so good.
There was easy banter, a sense of humour, mild flare-ups and fierce arguments. All this leavened with telephone calls from children far away; we exulted in their achievements and tried to swallow our tears when they ran into rough weather. The birth of a grandchild opened vistas of joy. A visit from a child became a favourite topic of conversation for days till another child took over.
Then my world crashed. His extreme fatigue was diagnosed as cancer followed up with visits to hospitals, second opinions, third opinions, drugs , painkillers, bouts of pain and periods of listlessness. We had to shift out of the comfortable surroundings of the city; soon strangers became friends, neighbours turned relatives and children became wise counsellors.
The disease was detected, treated and took its toll and one fine day the battle was over. It is through this period I saw a new man who struggled with grace and Sisyphean stoicism against a body that had turned its own saboteur—a man who refused to be brutalised by his circumstances smiling through his eyes, a hero in his pain.
The flood of condolence messages jammed my cell phone together with the reminiscences people had of him. Somewhere I had read, someone bereaved turned to the cosmos with the eternal question, “Why me? ” A voice replied, “Why not?” I have no answers but life can be rejuvenated only with memories.
Sudha Devi Nayak
Email: sudhadevi_nayak@yahoo.com