REMEMBERING MY WIFE: RECOLLECTIONS -1

This January 2018; marks one year since the departure of my wife where she valorously resisted but lost to the sadistic command of cancer. Staggering in me alone shadows, it turned out, suffering the stress, one year seemed drifted carelessly, as if in a hurry. The days happen to go by, a drop, uneasily slow; but the hours, chocked with emptiness were the hardest to live with. The hard hours it felt like stuck jammed between one strong slice of emotional balancing and a bad space of despair. Noticing that I’m letting the dark moods to swirl uncontrolled, shrunk under my own weight of negativity I made an appeal to my good sense of optimism to help haul me out of this downfall of self-pity.

The first three months after her demise was too overwhelming allowing me not to forget or ignore anything that belonged to my wife. The physical presence wearing her memories is everywhere in our home. Wherever the glare of my eye landed, on anything, it spoke about the colors of her recollections. I had a tough time assembling my goodwill not to yield to the frustration the way fate had ill-treated me. I mightily willed not to succumb to the pressure of negative winds that are ready to carry me into the days of defeatism and indiscipline. Thankfully, my books, my study, my intuition haven’t prepared me to enslave myself to this extravagance of dullness. I firmed myself aloud that inertia has no room in my proposed schedules.

My wife Mani had a deep relating influence on how I think and assume my tasks and maybe, fatalistically, brushed upon me in the years a shade of perspective how to lead a life of my own in her absence. It is perhaps, because of her inspirational domination that she subtly persisted to train me in many qualities, because of which, today, I could firmly carry through and delve deep into my prized worth: reading, teaching and writing quests; but joylessly – without her supportive presence.

For over three decades admiring and respecting our separate selves; me and my wife’s, very well sort of solo in mind and manner but nevertheless, moved along an agreeable course preserving and developing that would exclusively interest us – she spiritually accomplished and academically brilliant; I mostly casual in many aspects, not too serious pursuing anything for a longer period and a creative freelancer. Our pursuits, our personalities, our normal outlook never traveled in one straight line. But together we have brought into our lives the comfort and peace of mind that would synergize and allowed us to flourish in our own chosen academic, social and cultural spheres. When I’m tired she there for me with her caring warmth to bring the spark back to me. And she had all my backing and understanding to bring to the fore the creative spectacle she is made of.

Our family timeline saw fewer conflicts, minor stresses, and barely any friction. Both of our day to day acts and attitudes went on like a hand in glove. She worked with enormous composure and attention tending to me and my children besides shrewdly looking after the professional duties. My role covered to watch the attitudes that everyone in the family enjoys their own freedom to form their pursuits. I always recognized that to replenish the store of serenity at home is my preeminent priority. I seldom came across in our long gratifying safari any overstepping on each other’s toes. The secret lies that even in our duality, how we have fine-tuned our daily exertions to wrap oneness around our family wellbeing.

One quality I can speak about that had flavored the essence of flourishing in our own right without any eventful strife lies in respecting the need and desire to mature and succeed on our own. We chose our own best-liked paths separately from each other – contrasting individuals yet enviously intimate in the long haul. In the course, she had climbed better, faster and higher the academic and professional steps than I really ever capable of. Honestly. The sense of fulfillment of joy comes in when I keep recalling the sense of security, contentment, and compatibility I have hemmed in around our three-decade long weave of mutually supportive relationships.

And everything went topsy-turvy on that fateful day, in February 2014; the sails of my life hit a cursing turbulence.

I remember the day, early evening I started reading the scan reports, in the presence of the surgical oncologist who was treating my wife for the last five years, my teary eyes fixed on the damnable final paragraph. Printed in extra bold letters, reporting the ruinous cancer spread to almost all her systems. And I know my wife is tensely waiting in another room, tired and pale after hours sitting in scanning rooms, punctured at various places on her body scooping out tissues for detailed scrutiny. She had endured all with a hope that the result would be upbeat and good. The doctor gave his final verdict before attending to another hapless patient, “I’m sorry, bad luck, she can’t make it for more than eight months” and left leaving me to face the first death bell of cold-blooded cancer that had already started consuming my wife quick and fast.

For next fifteen minutes, I had a hard time controlling myself. Carrying my normal posture, demeanor and assuring countenance at once became feeble and telling. I have to go out and utter some cheerful facts fast but, “no I can’t face her, standing without breaking down seeing her is impossible” is my sinking mood at the moment.

For the next two years, my only dominant mission has been one biggest battle, which I knew that I would eventually lose – to keep my wife as comfortable as the palliative treatment would help her and allow her to stay as much as she can, at home, loveably looked after by her dearly family members.

Until today it a traumatic surprise to me how my wife did her best to maintain her dignity and fearless comportment under the most trying circumstances.

Even though, I never shared the prognosis reports with her, however, I heartbrokenly mindful that my wife, with her ‘thirty-four years living together’ prudence and perception it is as easy, as looking in a mirror, to  recognize  that the sudden changes the way we started interacting among the few who were with her. Like our voices sounding slightly choked, words coming out haltingly, eyes always looking glassy, our way of dressing became less formal to careless, faces devoid of energy and enigmatic. I very well know how much she could infer from our awkward mannerisms.

For a woman who is spiritually accomplished, a charming star of my family for thirty-four pleasant years it is no surprise that she would notice in a whiff the prophetic gloominess hanging in each and every corner of our house. Spread on the faces of whoever closely related to my family and stepped into the room where she was kept. A room completely converted into a treatment area to suit her care and comfort.

She was gracefully mindful of what is going on inside her and surrounding her but she is imperviously herself as if prepared to silently endure with all the spirit she has and as long as her last breath allows her.

I studied recently in a phenomenally heart-touching treatise by Atul Gawande, ‘BEING MORTAL: Medicine and what matters in the end. That, “A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause”. Caring for my wife, then and remembering her ever:  is for me a great cause – eternally.