The First Ever Grief...

This is probably the most unrevised post I ever wrote.

Those faint flash of words I heard from my half-sleep shakes me to my core.

My father worked at a parcel service company in Tamil Nādu, India, as a cashier for most of his life. He had been a Cash manager at a branch in Chennai and would retire in the next two years. We planned to bring both my mom and dad to Canada with us for at least a few months after his retirement. My mom and brother live in Coimbatore, which is our native, dad works from Chennai, and visited my family once a month for about 5 days or so. I went to India in October 2019 for a month, and I haven’t visited since. Our plan was to visit them within the next couple of years, attend my brother’s wedding, and have fun, hopefully, bringing our parents to Canada when we left. The plan sounded good, Mom was happy, Dad happy, brother happy!

May 7th, 2023-

 My husband, my daughter, and I were visiting our closest friends in the US for a week. That was the fifth day, with extensive plans to do some brunch, sightseeing, and cook lavish foods, after a long week of running behind toddlers and caring for a baby. Quite a pleasure, you see, at a place with the most lovable people of my life, at the prettiest little town I have ever seen, and the place has the most perfect Thermostat weather! With all these excitements, and plans about my daughter’s meal ideas for the next day's adventure, I went to bed at about 7th May 2023- 1:15 AM EST. I put my phone on airplane mode when I sleep after I spoke to my mom at about 6th May 2023- 11:45 PM, which is about 9:15 AM on 7th May in India. Confirmed the things were all good, and the troublemaker, my brother was doing just fine.

 Next morning, at about 6:30 AM, my husband woke up to a phone call, which woke me up a little bit. Usually, his brother calls him at those times, and this time, it was my brother, which I still didn’t realize. I heard a faint voice on the other side of his phone, saying ‘Travel to Chennai’ and ‘Body’, while my eyes are still closed, brain half shut. The number of images that run in my half-shut brain is endless. While I instantly thought it was my brother on the other line and he was referring to my father, our father, and about him dying, while my eyes closed, I woke up with my husband in tears. I asked him what happened, while something inside me already recognized that it is about my father. I picked up the phone, where the dialer said ‘Rishi Jio’ on a regular call, not on whatsapp which is where we usually speak. On the other side, I was thinking that I should not put my phone on Airplane mode at night, while listening to my brother saying that our father died in his room, and that they didn’t know the time or cause of death. He said that our mother was on her way to Chennai with my uncle to bring him back to Coimbatore. I handed the phone to him, seeing it, feeling my husband’s fingers touch mine, just realigning my senses to see if I am in one of those nightmares. Speaking of nightmares, I saw a dream of my father’s death a couple months ago, which I faintly remember, was on a gloomy evening at my childhood home, my brother and I were sitting on the patio, and mulling over his death, even though I am unable to recall the exact situation. I thought if that call was something like this, which with a few tears upon my husband’s heavenly chests, would slowly vanish. Turns out, it was not what my mind’s eyes saw, it WAS and IS the reality. I lost my father.

I stood there, no tears, no reactions, but being fully aware that I lost my father. My husband was in tears, hugging me, I can recall I was constantly asking him, “But how?”, and I was saying, “Akshara is asleep, Akshara has to eat”, I was saying, “OK, what can I do with Akshara?”. I then took my phone out turned on the data to find my mom’s and my brother’s whatsapp messages at about 5:26 AM, with two photos of my father lying on the floor, with blue dhoti, and half sleeve blue shirt, fully buttoned, right hand stretched up, the left close on his left chest, fingers half folded, mouth slightly opened, eyes slightly opened, dried lips with no scathe, no blood, nothing. Even after looking at that, I had some sadness, but I didn’t cry, I remember thinking, “Wow, my dad is so healthy, good-looking man, he looks nothing like a dead person!”, while in the washroom. I came out, still unsure about what I should be thinking, but just asking how and what questions to my husband.

After a few mins, I called my mom, feeling, and saying all that a wife would say after hearing the news of her husband’s death. I realized that I consoled her like a spiritual Guru talking through the process of Death to his disciple, with some tears in my eyes, and some pain in my throat. I kept my composure, rationale, and sanity over this soul-crunching bitter truth.

Well, it turned out, the cause was a massive cardiac arrest. As a side note, he had no Blood pressure issues, no diabetes, could lift weights, could walk for several km without being a tad bit tired, didn’t have any smoking or drinking habits, ate well, consumed healthy homecooked vegetarian foods, pretty fit, no obesity, had virtually and literally, no stress or worries in his family or work life, such a chill, the fun-loving gentleman he was. He gave no one even the slightest whiff of some health condition, which would have led us to have him checked out for any underlying conditions thoroughly. In fact, on the 7th morning, his time of death was estimated to be 6:00 AM, and it was evident that he was about to open the door latch to step out, to get probably milk from the nearby store. There were things like coffee powder, water, a coffee filter, and his coffee cup on the kitchen table. He also had his wallet lying around him along with a small cloth bag he usually uses whenever he goes to stores. I read that such severe cardiac arrests give out a sharp pain or about 4-5 mins after which the person wouldn’t feel any pain as they’d faint, and after a few mins, their heart and brain stops functioning, leading to death. One thing I can be sure of is that he did not suffer when he faced his death. The pain he must have been in should have lasted for roughly 5-10 mins maximum.

 However, I am glad that he no longer has the need to put up with the drama that this life is. Hopefully, he will be reborn as a rich person’s child, so he needn’t have to suffer the physical difficulties he went through this birth as my father, and he will be born to sensible parents, who would impart the best knowledge both social and spiritual, so his soul’s journey elevates closer to the ultimate truth.

Note that I wrote the most content of this post on the day of his death when I was on a flight to India to attend his cremation and other rituals, and I wrote this post with a ton of pain in my heart, throat, and eyes. I did not give it a second read, especially the first 4 paragraphs, I am NOT willing to do an active recall of that agony once again, so ignore the errors if any.

A final note:

I am a big planner, the number of plans I had, and even the number of times I mentioned in the first half of this post, is unusually high. Nevertheless, how little things are in our control, how little we are, in front of the intensity and enormity of this Universe and the mysterious force that keeps it intact. I am not going to discount the importance of planning because of this revelation, but I am going to gauge how well I live every moment of this life, if my plans have this consideration at the core, and if what I value the most in this life is/are included in my plans.