This is an approximate transcript of a presentation I made at a TCF (The Compassionate Friends) gathering of bereaved parents earlier this month. The topic was “Finding Hope after Catastrophe”. I hope you find it useful in some way.
“Hello. My name is Sangeeta. I am an Anaesthetist by profession and it’s my job to put people to sleep. Thank you TCF, for having me here this evening.
My son is called Saagar Naresh. I could often hear his cackles emanating from his room. I am pretty sure he’s watching cat videos again. He loves to laugh and make other people laugh. He’s as bright as they come, astutely picking up languages, accents and mannerisms of people around him. He would go shopping with his best friend Hugo to Oxford street and they would pretend to be South African tourists all day.
We loved cooking together. It
involved chopping of onions. He got tired of his eyes stinging and watering and
found a way out – he would wear his swimming goggles whilst chopping onions. It
worked brilliantly!
He was an excellent
cricketer. A fast bowler to be precise. He also played the drums in a band. He
loved to go to the gym. Most of all, he had a heart of gold and even when he
was a teenager, he loved cuddles. He spoke French and German fluently and chose
to study Arabic from scratch at University as he wanted to challenge himself.
After his second year at
Durham University, he came home for the summer holiday and was diagnosed with
Bipolar Disorder. He was unable to go back to pursue his studies as his
depression started to deepen. We saw a doctor on the 14th of October
2014. He told us that Saagar would have to wait till his medications kicked in,
that he was on the right medicines but they would take time to work. On the 16th
of October, Saagar ended his own life.
That was like a bomb going
off in our lives. Losing him suddenly, out of the blue was our catastrophe.
Finding hope …
The Oxford dictionary defines
Hope as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen”.
For me, Hope is the belief that
it is possible that some of the best days in my life are yet to come.
Soon after Saagar passed
away, just getting through the day was an achievement. The time ‘yet to come’
was a huge burden. I had nothing left to offer to the world and the one thing I
wanted, the world could not offer me. My own mortality stared me squarely in my
face and it was strangely seductive.
What was I left with? My
logical mind had been turned into an emotional pulp as there was no logic to
this. The more I tried to make sense of it, the more I suffered. It was like
banging my head against a brick wall. It did not make any sense. Period. Deal
with it.
What was I left with?
- This moment,
right NOW
- Me, mySELF.
- Nature.
NOW
How deep rooted was my belief
that Saagar would always be around? How much did I take that for granted?
What am I taking for granted right now?
My breath.
My parents.
My partner.
My job.
My health.
Let death be your teacher.
‘Right now’ is all I have left. Like a bird trapped in a cage. The door is open
but the bird is unable to fly away. The cage is where he/she belongs. In the ‘now’,
I could only sit and watch the door, knowing that it was open. I could breathe
in, take a pause, breathe out, pause, breathe in and repeat… I could fully
acknowledge and feel the dark hollow that was my chest and hear the echoes of
my sobs returning from the black hole within. Connecting fully with the present
moment was the only way past it. There was no short-cut. No secret escape
route. One moment at a time. Now, I am walking upstairs. Now, I am halving
cherry tomatoes. Now, I am watching the steam rise from my cup of tea and so
on… My refuge lay in this moment, right here. Right now. The future is a story.
The past exists in our thoughts. Yet, our mind is in one or the other. What is
real is this moment.
I had a patient once who had a
black ‘Gratitude’ tattoo on her left forearm in a big bold decorative font. I
asked her the story behind it. She said, ”I work with kids with learning
disabilities. By the time I’ve brushed my teeth in the morning, I’ve achieved
more than they can. So, I am grateful every moment.”
SELF
I was lucky to have so much
support at that impossible time. My mum and brother came over from India to be
with me. My friends, Saagar’s friends, their parents, my work colleagues.
Everyone stood by me with love and compassion but ultimately it was up to me to
live with this utter devastation. I was filled with so many questions, so much
guilt and grief that I felt like I was drowning.
It took 2-3 years but slowly
I taught myself to be kind to myself. I am still teaching and reminding myself
that our everyday reality is made up of stuff that is unthinkable for most
people. We live the life that is other’s worst nightmare. Many can’t even
imagine what it’s like to be in our shoes.
So, we need to honour
ourselves for carrying on living with as much grace and dignity as possible
after having absorbed the impact of such a huge catastrophe. To know that the
harsh inner critic will continue to chatter but we need to witness its
mumbling, recognise the pointlessness of it and let it go.
We need to have compassion
for ourselves. Compassion being not just a gentle kind feeling but small acts
of courage. For instance, I used to love dangly ear-rings ‘before’. I would
change them every day, to match my clothes. But for 3 years ‘after’ I didn’t
change out of the boring old gold studs. One day I decided to change into one
of my favourite pair of ear-rings for no particular reason. It was a small
shift. It took courage. I cried. But it was an act of kindness towards myself.
I needed my own friendship, my own affection. I needed to once again find ways
of being at ease with myself. Lord Buddha has said “If your compassion does not
include yourself, it is incomplete.”
I am learning that I need to
be a ‘compassionate friend’ to myself.
NATURE
That wretched day in the
middle of October was cursed but also resplendent with autumn colours. It was a
festival of orange, ochre, red, green, yellow and terracotta. These decorative
leaves carpeted our street. I stared out of the window watching these leaves
gracefully dance their way to the ground. The trees went from being semi-nude
to naked. This was the cycle of life. Nature was reminding me and showing me
the devastating beauty of life. Cycles upon cycles of change, millions of times
over. The impermanence of everything.
Over the next few months, I
sat gazing at the Himalayan mountain range, marvelling at its history and all
the changes it has undergone. I sat on a beach in Goa, watching the ocean waves
change every second. Over time, I started to allow Nature to teach me what I
needed to learn and soothe me when I needed to be soothed. I learnt that we
humans can carry the utter tyranny of life in one hand while simultaneously
carrying the spectacular beauty of it in the other.
I requested everyone to join me in singing this song by ABBA and was delighted by the upward shift of healing energy in the room as everyone sang together. It was a powerfully uplifting evening.
I have a
dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream, I have a dream
I have a
dream, a fantasy
To help me through reality
And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream, I have a dream
I’ll cross the stream, I have a dream
I have a dream, a song to sing
To help…”
kidsaregifts 