I Am Remembering Someone Today
no point holding back at this moment. even though it sounds crazy.
i do remember the day he died.
Some people just leave a strange presence in your mind, even when you never really knew them, or were never a part of their lives. Their charisma is at work even after they're gone.
And a couple of weeks before his death, i just had...an urge, to ask his family how they were all doing, I was specifically worried about him. A very strange feeling indeed, that i had to brush off as I was in no position to contact them, but the inner nagging kept returning frequently the entire week.
Until we finally heard the news. That he was fading away slowly.
The situation was a chaos. There was acute miscommunication, that lead to multiple misunderstandings, and further miscommunication.
We ourselves were going through a very broken period ourselves, and i wasn't getting any sleep. i had lost a lot of weight, my hair was all falling, my face was ashen, and my head was chronically clouded. Mum had aged a decade in a year, and my dad was getting skeletal and kyphoid himself. And we were all so resentful of one another, and of fate itself. I used to sleep with pepper spray under my pillow, and my dad, a knife.
But we tried as much as we could to support him.
And yet i think we couldn't do him justice. He just wasn't coming back.
And I was tired. Being around so many people, and fighting for cognition had exhausted me. And yet, i don't know why, i made a promise that i couldn't keep, that I would show up again the next morning. I said it so surely, that i put a hand on my chest to convince them, when I knew it wasn't going to be possible, and it wasn't my place to be, anyway. But I wanted them to be able to sleep that night.
And myself, as every night, I couldn't sleep at all until dawn. And when my alarm went off in the morning, i turned it off. I didn't even wake up to see if my siblings had left safely. I was so exhausted. I slept and I slept and I slept, till the afternoon sun was glaring in my face through the window, and I saw a couple messages that my giddy head couldn't decipher, except for a few words "thank you"..."we talked"...."they took notice of the observations".....all in all, it looked good, and I collapsed back into a deep slumber.
Again, until the call.
I stood beside the bed, still in a haze. I hadn't known him, at all. I hadn't thought of him, at all. Why only [i]now[/i] had the notion of his distress tugged at my conscience? Was it my fault that he was gone? With trembling hands I shut his eyes.
I hadn't known him so I never cried. I didn't feel any sadness.
But I still feel....his [i]presence[/i]. Not in the literal sense, but in the sense of him popping randomly in my thoughts. In very ordinary memories. I wonder why that is?
After much reflection, I feel it is due to a certain charismatic aura that he had always possessed, that still resonates.
i do remember the day he died.
Some people just leave a strange presence in your mind, even when you never really knew them, or were never a part of their lives. Their charisma is at work even after they're gone.
And a couple of weeks before his death, i just had...an urge, to ask his family how they were all doing, I was specifically worried about him. A very strange feeling indeed, that i had to brush off as I was in no position to contact them, but the inner nagging kept returning frequently the entire week.
Until we finally heard the news. That he was fading away slowly.
The situation was a chaos. There was acute miscommunication, that lead to multiple misunderstandings, and further miscommunication.
We ourselves were going through a very broken period ourselves, and i wasn't getting any sleep. i had lost a lot of weight, my hair was all falling, my face was ashen, and my head was chronically clouded. Mum had aged a decade in a year, and my dad was getting skeletal and kyphoid himself. And we were all so resentful of one another, and of fate itself. I used to sleep with pepper spray under my pillow, and my dad, a knife.
But we tried as much as we could to support him.
And yet i think we couldn't do him justice. He just wasn't coming back.
And I was tired. Being around so many people, and fighting for cognition had exhausted me. And yet, i don't know why, i made a promise that i couldn't keep, that I would show up again the next morning. I said it so surely, that i put a hand on my chest to convince them, when I knew it wasn't going to be possible, and it wasn't my place to be, anyway. But I wanted them to be able to sleep that night.
And myself, as every night, I couldn't sleep at all until dawn. And when my alarm went off in the morning, i turned it off. I didn't even wake up to see if my siblings had left safely. I was so exhausted. I slept and I slept and I slept, till the afternoon sun was glaring in my face through the window, and I saw a couple messages that my giddy head couldn't decipher, except for a few words "thank you"..."we talked"...."they took notice of the observations".....all in all, it looked good, and I collapsed back into a deep slumber.
Again, until the call.
I stood beside the bed, still in a haze. I hadn't known him, at all. I hadn't thought of him, at all. Why only [i]now[/i] had the notion of his distress tugged at my conscience? Was it my fault that he was gone? With trembling hands I shut his eyes.
I hadn't known him so I never cried. I didn't feel any sadness.
But I still feel....his [i]presence[/i]. Not in the literal sense, but in the sense of him popping randomly in my thoughts. In very ordinary memories. I wonder why that is?
After much reflection, I feel it is due to a certain charismatic aura that he had always possessed, that still resonates.
