Memories

The Wednesday Group.

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Dear Saagar,

Ten is a strange one. Who knew an innocent, round, even number like this could inflict such pain on one. The last note I had from you was ten years ago. It turned each moment of each day into an unwanted debt, heavily owed to God-knows-who. Potential decades stretched out before me like a horizon-less dark desert. I wished they would disappear. Time became the enemy, unfolding in fits and starts in wiggly circular patterns, etching lines of blood and tears on the surface of mighty oceans.  

Now, this gone decade demands recognition. It wants to be acknowledged in some way, however small. It deserves a pat on the back for braving through such turmoil and finally becoming a friend.

Hugo, Azin, Phoebe and some other friends, yours and ours came over for a Sunday lunch in early August and brought their friends along. Many of them, musicians. Remember Corinne Bailey Rae? You bought me her CD, Girl put your records on one Christmas? Remember how I sang along to it in the kitchen while cooking? On Sunday, we sang that song together. The Dock of the Bay and Ain’t no sunshine and Stand by me too.

We cut a chocolate cake for everyone who turned thirty this year. We were together for five glorious hours. Tens of sun-flowers smiled in vases dotted around the room and the sun shone on us as we talked and laughed and sang, just like the old times.

You won’t believe this but I resigned from my job recently. I know. I was so proud of it. I got so much from it. It meant so much to me but I feel liberated. Now someone else can do that lovely job while I work with my unique gift. In a world increasingly obsessed with labels, I am happy to lighten myself and shed a few.  

Last weekend, Si and I hosted a retreat for eleven bereaved parents. It was The Wednesday Group of the Circle of Remembrance that had started meeting online in May 2022. For more than two years we met for an hour and a half online every fortnight, sharing the most personal of things. This was the first occasion for us to meet in person as a group. It was divine.

One brown butterfly alighted on the left side of Si’s chest and rested on his white shirt peacefully for quite a while as we all talked and laughed and sipped our teas and coffees.

After returning home, one mum wrote to say,

“…this weekend has reminded me of who I am and what I am capable of as I continue to navigate this life I never expected or wanted to have.” 

What could be better?

I am blessed. Thank you for being my son.

Your essence remains here, with us.

Love you my darling.

Mamma. xxx

(Please visit http://www.core-community.com and contact us to join our loving and understanding community or recommend it to anyone who might find peer support after child loss helpful.)

(A handmade patchwork wall-piece for the home of CORe)

One less. One pless.

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This is a coffee-growing village situated within an area of outstanding natural beauty and huge bio-diversity. At an altitude of 1000 meters, it has a unique eco-ystem. Despite the fact that it rains a lot, it is charming as hell. Everyone drinks coffee all the time. The coffee-cups hold about three mouthfuls, possibly to make up for the frequency with which it is consumed, or else we would be seriously buzzing round the clock.

After a couple of months here, we have learnt to say ‘one less and one pless’ when Si and I order coffee at a roadside café. It means, may we have one cup without sugar and one with. The literacy rate here is officially more than 80% but all in Kannada. English, if spoken is often incorrect and extremely functional.

A few weeks ago, I volunteered to teach ‘Spoken English’ to the primary school kids at the local Government school for one hour every week. I have never done anything like this before. I have no idea if it will make any difference in the long run but if nothing else, we have fun together. Last week we blew bubbles, talked about their shapes, sizes and named the colours they capture. We tried to describe how they move through the air and how they make us feel. We agreed they made us all feel happy. That’s a good start.

On the way home, sitting at the back of the tuk-tuk my heart was overflowing with joy and then I remembered that I never blew bubbles with Saagar. My eyes welled up but I was still smiling.

Ode to London.

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“I wouldn’t choose to live here. It’s good for a visit. A change.”

As a tourist in London, that was my opinion in 2005. Less than a year later a job offer I couldn’t turn down meant we moved to London with our bags and belongings. The move from the capital of Northern Ireland to the capital of England was a huge culture shock. The sights and sounds of Belfast, a place we had come to feel at home in, were peaceful and serene compared to the chaotic juddering of London.

We relocated, rented for a year before buying. Our home was five miles south of London Bridge and we lived there for 17 years. Saagar lived there for eight, two of which he spent at Uni. We got past our initial anxieties about the cost of living etc. and came to love the buzz, the cultural richness and the stimulating challenges of living in this crazy noisy place.

For the past couple of years, we have wanted to live simply. Last year we returned to India for a few months to winter here in response to the extra attention our respective bones and bodies were demanding from us. We made a home in rural Goa, albeit temporary. Yes. This is serene and peaceful. Yes. Time is plentiful here and the tropical languor is endearing. Yes. The Arabian sea is warm and its breeze soothing. I am utterly grateful for all of that but we find it’s not simple to create simplicity. This place is lovely but it is entirely non-London and I dearly miss that home five miles south of the centre. I miss our cat, our plants, our neighbours (some). I miss my girl-friends and work-colleagues, posh cafés and French restaurants, a quiet walk through West Norwood Cemetery and a stopover at the Tate while along the Thames, a routine, a purpose. I never thought I’d say this but sometimes I even miss people watching on my morning commute to work. I miss being around folks who knew Saagar and spoke of him, people who loved him. 

A friend, Dr Michael Duncan who is a Consultant colleague and a poet, shares the same love of this city in his recent poem.

A Masterpiece of a City

You don’t need an Acropolis
To be the foremost Metropolis
I would need a paragraph
To just describe the Cenotaph
It’s prominent and sleek
And take a look in
To the Arches of Marble
Or the Marbles of Elgin
Pleasing, unless you are Greek
And while that is a pity
It’s still a masterpiece of a City

A mystery of a city
The extremes of iniquity
But the best of the humanities
All Side by side
Diversity is most alive
Within the M25
From Harrow to Bexley
In this Masterpiece of a City

London imperturbe,
Caressing the Thames
And the bends that it lends
I searched the world
And found the world here
My Sentiments for Ealing
Are Morden a feeling
The Thames is greater than the Liffey
A masterpiece of a city

Parakeets, they were transplanted
And brilliantly adapted
And The foxes of Camden
Though residents might damn them
And The foxes of Tooting
Raiding and looting
It’s mammalian diversity
In this masterpiece of a City

And if you should seek something greater
Then enter the chambers
Of the Western Minster
Ministering and dithering
Perfecting their duplicity
Are the master debaters

A masterpiece of a city
It has no Ulysses written about it
But if you take a Peyp
There is potential for one
Thy will be done
The masterpiece, is London.

Walking home.

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Every time we visited him in the Intensive Care Unit, he mouthed the line “Just take me home.”

We wanted the same. It was our prayer in every moment that we would be able to take him home. But how would we transport the things that were attached to him? The things on which his life depended – monitors, strong medications being infused through syringe pumps and the beeping robot that was supporting his lungs? Even if we transported those, who would man these gadgets and modulate them as required? The first step was to get him to breathe by himself. It was happening in bursts. Some days he looked so bright that it was easy to believe that it wouldn’t be too long before we could. Other times he seemed tired, simply from the effort of breathing. Of course, they were trying to help him come off the ventilator but sometimes it was too much for him. Despite their good intentions and gentle demeanour, it was too much for him.

One of the young residents encouragingly said, “Sir, we want to send you home soon. That’s why we’re making you work hard.” He pointed skywards with a wry smile, “That way?”

In the end, it was a long, slow goodbye.

“We’re all walking each other home.”

– Ram Dass.

Thirteen weeks

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Date of admission: 2nd Sept 2022 (Friday)

Date of Surgery:     5th September 2022 (Monday)

Date of demise:      2nd December 2022 (Friday)

Length of hospital stay: 13 weeks (91 days)

82 years old gentleman with no significant medical history was admitted for an elective Anterior Decompression of Cervical Canal Stenosis. He wanted to regain his confidence in walking and return to playing golf. He was not on any regular medications. He was not overweight, diabetic or hypertensive. He had no history of heart or lung disease. He lived independently with his wife in their flat on the second floor of a building that had no lift. He went out at least once or twice every day without much difficulty. He was an ardent and proficient bridge player. He drove his car to a friend’s birthday party one week before he was admitted to hospital.

He underwent an uneventful surgery but afterwards he lost power in all his limbs. They took him back to re-operate and make more space for the spinal cord that had swollen up, according to the MRI. That didn’t make any difference. His lungs were unable to work properly as the muscles of his diaphragm became weak. The domes of the diaphragm separate the chest from the abdomen. They play an important part in effective breathing and coughing.  Yes, surprisingly, the nerves to the diaphragm, originate from the neck (C3,4,5). They stopped conducting electricity. His lungs became unsupported.

His doctors said he’ll get better. It was just a matter of time. We needed to be patient. He needed help with his breathing so his windpipe was hooked on to a machine with numbers and waves and graphs and bleeps. He could not speak. No air came through his vocal cords.

Over the next few weeks he regained the sharpness of his mind and found that he was unable to breathe or speak, move or eat, turn from side to side in bed or have any control over his environment. He couldn’t really tell if it was day or night. The machines in the ICU made mad beeping sounds throughout the day and night and no one cared.

Patience wasn’t one of his best qualities but he was patient. Over the next few weeks he regained some strength in his forearms, enough to wave us hello and bye. Enough to blow us kisses and indicate that he was enjoying the music we were playing for him. Enough to bring his hand up to my ears and mouth the words “Nice ear-rings.” He learnt to communicate through his lip and arm movements. He said thanks to everyone who came to see him. He also said, “I love you” more than ever before. He smiled a lot despite his predicament.

His younger son is a writer and a storyteller. He told him a story of two well-known writers of modest means who visited a super-rich investment banker about something. In conversation the banker said he had great wealth, what did these two measly writers have? One of the writers said, we have something you will never have. “Really. What might that be?” He asked with a smirk.

“We have enough.”

After a moment, this patient father on Bed number 19 formed these words with his smiling lips, “I have enough.”

His lungs got infected five times in three months and the morale of his family went up and down like a yo-yo with him. No one knew what would happen next. In between, there were good times – going for a spin on a wheel chair, bowing to the statue of Buddha down the corridor, having bits of tomato-ketchup-flavoured-pringles with tiny sips of Coke, watching sparrows on frangipani trees. But this was not his chosen way of life. He had had enough. His heart had had enough. It stopped. The time to say good-bye left his doctors and nurses in tears too.

Ninety-one days of pure love and deep suffering. The former remains while the latter is done.

May there be peace for all beings everywhere.

“What will survive of us is love.” – Philip Larkin.