CHENNAI: I don’t feel good at all…’ Don’t lose hope, I said, don’t lose hope. But just two nights later, Dadaji was gone — Covid took him away from us forever.” Anil’s voice shakes with an indefinable emptiness as he recounts his grandfather’s passing three years ago. “Shock. Shock. Shock. That is what hit me first when I heard the news. And then, as the days went by, tears…” laments the 25-year-old.
Today, we live in a world that has metamorphosed from the cataclysmic Covid cocoon. Yet, when we look around, what do we see? A war-ravaged Gaza, adorned by tear after tear of its children and tomb after tomb for 38,000 Palestinians, even as the conflict leaves indelible marks of loss and trauma on many Israeli families. And early this month gazes across the country were pinned on Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras, where a stampede at a religious event snuffed out over 120 lives. And before that, Kallakurichi bore witness to the hooch tragedy which snatched dozens away from their loved ones.
Loss. Painful, daunting, and cruel. Loss. Of a parent, grandparent, spouse, and so on. Loss. How do we cope? One thus scours for answers in the losses borne by others. Anil shares his two cents: “He was old but I say he had a whole life ahead of him. My way of coping is being supportive, jovial, and always doing good for the community — just like he did. I know…he is watching over me.”
Letting her go
Fifty-one-year-old Venkat lights up like a bunch of Deepavali lights as he tells us about Sujatha, his dream girl. “The first time I saw her…her dimples and that magnetic smile. Twenty years I spent with her and when our girls grew up, we were ready to travel the world together. But one day…”
Despite years of grappling with endometriosis and its cascading complications, Sujatha stood tall as a professor and a supermum. “But one day, her oxygen dipped to a dangerous low. One hospital didn’t have the required injection and another didn’t keep it ready despite being informed. I ran from pillar to post even as I was badgered to sign a form! Oxygen dropped to 45…40…and her heart stopped. Pulmonary embolism…” Venkat’s voice fades into an incomprehensible silence.
And grief played truant until the funeral ended. “Then I wondered why, why, why! I felt guilty for not doing enough to save her, of surviving instead of her. What now? What next? How?” Countless poets, artists, and philosophers from the bygone ages have posed these very questions to the world around them. Like Robert Frost, whose ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ poetically ushers us towards accepting the painful reality that nothing wonderful lasts forever:
“Nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf’s a flower; but only so an hour
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief, so dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay…”
“On Suja’s birthday last year, a sky blue butterfly perched on my toe, flapping her wings. Never mind that I was in a bustling coffee shop. It was almost like she had come just to see me. So I spoke to the little butterfly, unbothered that people were watching me like I was some sort of fool. After a while, I told her: You can go. And she fluttered away…”
Venkat has learned to look up and trudge on. “But marry again? Cha, never!” scoffs the lovestruck husband. Instead, he breaks out into a song for her:
Munbae vaa en anbae vaa
Oonae vaa uyirae vaa…
Just as winter lets spring birth her flowers, so shall rain and gloom abate for sunshine and calm to reign supreme. Indeed, a lost loved one makes your heart a hearth after they depart and stay on as your hairs turn silver.
A little girl pines
“When I was five, I ran excitedly to my family and begged them to get me a certain slate. Why, after all, the child in that Tamil magazine ad got 100 marks after using it no! Everyone laughed and I felt sad. But appa did not laugh.” Seventy-five-year-old Radhika’s voice departs from a shakiness that is stickily kindred to those her age, making way for a childlike treble that hopscotches in reverse to seven decades ago. “He bought me that slate and so many books!”
Radhika kept him close to her always, living just a few hundred metres from him. But then life threw at her the greatest tragedy of all. “Multiple organ failure. Shock is what gripped me when he passed. When I went home, I sobbed and sobbed. Yes, I was 53 but in that moment I was just a little girl pining for her father to come back…”
Grief. While the emotional are perhaps acquainted with it, seldom does it spare even the most logical of them all. So, though psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross didn’t decode grief, she broke it down into five stages. Loosely speaking, imagine five waves dallying in the ocean. The first is shock while the second is rage. Out flows guilt and then extreme sadness. As the others retreat, the last wave gently nibbles at your feet. Ah, acceptance. “My son took me to my childhood home. Looking into each room, I saw that little girl enjoy countless memories with her father. That day, I accepted his loss and cherished his memories,” beams Radhika.
A blessing it is to have your loved ones around you as a child. But what happens when one of them suddenly leaves? A few months before I turned six, my great-grandmother passed away. To the world around, she was old and oh well, it is the natural order of things isn’t it? But to a child, it is perplexing as can be! Where is she, where is she, I would yell as I ran through the house. My grandmother told me, “Oh, she is a star in the sky!” But just as she held her head up high, believing I’d ask no more, I ran to my grandfather with a renewed barrage of whys, hows, and whats. A man of more practical pursuits, he said: “She passed away.” I didn’t weep but rather threw more questions at him, even as my grandmother reprimanded him for being so terse about it.
“Breaking the news about loss to children is still taboo. Parents, do not lie to your children about it. Tell them gently, allow them to process it, and communicate,” says psychologist Dr Vijayashri.
After the loss, I started to yearn for a furry little puppy. My mother laughed this off, quipping my sister and I were trouble enough. Oh, but the yearning goes on, for there is something special about animals, no?
Four-pawed angel
Begged I had for all my childhood, for a companion, a friend, or maybe a sister of sorts. But what I found was something more, so much more…
Karthik penned these words four years ago in an ode to his beloved eight-year-old retriever Cleo, who quietly passed away in his arms one morning after battling lymphoma for a month. “She was so selfless, always putting me first. Even if she wanted to go for a walk, she would always see what kind of mood I was in…” the 30-year-old’s voice trails off before he explains how deeply he felt her loss initially.
“But now, I imagine she’s right by my side, wagging her tail. And I know I’ve made her proud.” Indeed, his venture, Dattatreya Divine Dogs, gives back to our four-pawed friends. “I see Cleo in each dog I train. It isn’t just about training but helping dog parents learn from dogs and recognise their divinity,” Karthik says.
Ah…no wonder that sorrow is all-pervading when these gentle beings waltz into the heavens above. “Anyone who loses a dog will tell you the sheer heartbreak dissuades them from adopting another. But let them go and they shall come back in the most magical way possible,” says Karthik.
Heal, heal, heal
As I approach 25, a peculiar fear recklessly gnaws at my heart: the fear of losing my loved ones. My mother complains of a small stomach ache, I keep the doctor on speed-dial. My father attempts to lift something heavy, I run to do it for him. Sometimes, this makes me chuckle but most times, my heart grows heavy.
Loss. Perhaps the fear of it must be embraced too. Loss. Anil wants to give back to the community like his dadaji. Loss. Venkat let Suja go but loves her forever. Loss. Radhika accepted her father’s loss and cherishes his memories forever. Loss. Karthik sees little Cleo in every four-pawed angel he helps. Loss. It is deeply personal and yes, very painful. But from those perilous tales, we learn to relinquish sorrow to cherished memories, to make morrow another day for our loved ones to look on proudly from above, and lo and behold, we heal, heal, heal…
Coping with loss and taking care of mental health
Psychologist Dr Vijayashri and mental health expert Abhay Thakkar give us some tips on coping with loss:
V: Sudden deaths cause shock and guilt. Support the aggrieved and let them cry it out. Consult a psychologist to aid and track recovery.
A: Sadness can affect your breathing and lungs. Meditation and pranayama are ways to heal.
V: Deaths due to prolonged illnesses often leave the aggrieved lost and sad. Again, an expert can help you safely reach closure.
A: Channel grief into music, dancing, or art. Go on runs or walk barefoot on grass. What you shouldn’t do is give in to vices.