-- By Arulnambi K.
[ This concludes the essay series on my mother's last days and the time I spent with her then. By way of forewarning, this part is intense and personal. Most of it was originally written two weeks after my mother's passing. ]
One week after I had returned to the U.S., Amma fell silent. She stopped speaking completely, and only ate a few spoonfuls of food everyday. Amma's palliative care team, her nurses and my own research all indicated the same thing - she was days away from the end. Nobody had the heart to tell my father, who was at least outwardly positive and still pinning his hopes on the latest alternative treatment he had just started for her.
And then, on February 9, 2015, at 10:45 PM IST, Amma was gone, released from her suffering. Her prayers had finally been answered.
In the evening of February 11, Thambi (Tamil for younger brother) and I reached home in Chennai after a very long journey. Amma lay in her ice box. She was ever so lifeless, ever so still. Tears did not come. Maybe, I had mentally prepared myself too well for that moment.
A bit later that same evening, as Amma's body was being transported by ambulance to the crematorium, Appa (Tamil for father), Thambi and I followed by car. The ambulance's back door was kept open for that drive, as they were sprinkling flower petals through it along the road. I could see Amma's head and her white hair bobbing up and down as the vehicle moved on. That image reinforced her lifelessness. She was really gone. An oppressive weight was settling inside me. Still no tears, just that feeling of great weight.
The front room of the crematorium, where the bodies would be kept briefly to allow families to do any religious rites or ceremonies that they wished, was dark and damp, with a dirty and wet floor and what
looked like sooty walls in the badly flickering half light that was trying to burn there. Amma's body was shifted to lie on some pieces of wood that were tied together to make a rough (and very suitable to burn) stretcher of sorts. I lit a piece of camphor, and we prayed silently. After waiting for a few minutes as they finished preparing the inside of the crematorium, we carried Amma's body into the inner room.
We placed the stretcher with Amma's body on some rails that led to a closed iron door. I could feel the heat from inside that door. I was asked to light another piece of camphor, this time right on Amma's clothing near her ankles. Then they asked us to move back, opened the door, and pushed the stretcher with her body along the rails right into the chamber behind the doors. I caught a brief glimpse of the stretcher and her body surrounded by flames, then they closed the door and asked us to leave without looking back. There was a deadpan finality to that moment.
Later, as we drove back home, we were silent in the car. Then it struck me. I had left Amma behind, all alone. I had left her alone, in the fire, in the darkness. A rush of emotion and tears pushed through. I cried silently, looking out the car window. Nobody seemed to notice. They were all lost in their own thoughts or just focusing on getting home.
I hardly slept that night. Many memories and emotions flooded me. Most of all, Amma's absence in that house was itself a smothering presence. I exchanged messages with my wife. I wished she and my son were there. I cried a lot more, and always silently. A few times, Thambi, who was sharing the room with me, seemed to sniffle just like me, like he had a cold, only he didn't, or was it allergies? I wondered if he was actually awake and thinking the same thing about me.
In the end, I had fulfilled one of Amma's last wishes. She had wanted me to come from wherever I was to perform her last rites. She had told me just a few weeks earlier, and it was my duty as her elder son. But there was one other wish I could never fulfill, which was for me to be with her during her last hour. So, if I had a first wish, I wish I could go back in time just once, and hold her hand as she passed from this world.
[ Part 1 - Into the Maelstrom ] [ Part 2 - Blessings in Disguise ] [ Part 3 - Crucible of Pain ]
[ This concludes the essay series on my mother's last days and the time I spent with her then. By way of forewarning, this part is intense and personal. Most of it was originally written two weeks after my mother's passing. ]
One week after I had returned to the U.S., Amma fell silent. She stopped speaking completely, and only ate a few spoonfuls of food everyday. Amma's palliative care team, her nurses and my own research all indicated the same thing - she was days away from the end. Nobody had the heart to tell my father, who was at least outwardly positive and still pinning his hopes on the latest alternative treatment he had just started for her.
And then, on February 9, 2015, at 10:45 PM IST, Amma was gone, released from her suffering. Her prayers had finally been answered.
In the evening of February 11, Thambi (Tamil for younger brother) and I reached home in Chennai after a very long journey. Amma lay in her ice box. She was ever so lifeless, ever so still. Tears did not come. Maybe, I had mentally prepared myself too well for that moment.
A bit later that same evening, as Amma's body was being transported by ambulance to the crematorium, Appa (Tamil for father), Thambi and I followed by car. The ambulance's back door was kept open for that drive, as they were sprinkling flower petals through it along the road. I could see Amma's head and her white hair bobbing up and down as the vehicle moved on. That image reinforced her lifelessness. She was really gone. An oppressive weight was settling inside me. Still no tears, just that feeling of great weight.
The front room of the crematorium, where the bodies would be kept briefly to allow families to do any religious rites or ceremonies that they wished, was dark and damp, with a dirty and wet floor and what
looked like sooty walls in the badly flickering half light that was trying to burn there. Amma's body was shifted to lie on some pieces of wood that were tied together to make a rough (and very suitable to burn) stretcher of sorts. I lit a piece of camphor, and we prayed silently. After waiting for a few minutes as they finished preparing the inside of the crematorium, we carried Amma's body into the inner room.
We placed the stretcher with Amma's body on some rails that led to a closed iron door. I could feel the heat from inside that door. I was asked to light another piece of camphor, this time right on Amma's clothing near her ankles. Then they asked us to move back, opened the door, and pushed the stretcher with her body along the rails right into the chamber behind the doors. I caught a brief glimpse of the stretcher and her body surrounded by flames, then they closed the door and asked us to leave without looking back. There was a deadpan finality to that moment.
Later, as we drove back home, we were silent in the car. Then it struck me. I had left Amma behind, all alone. I had left her alone, in the fire, in the darkness. A rush of emotion and tears pushed through. I cried silently, looking out the car window. Nobody seemed to notice. They were all lost in their own thoughts or just focusing on getting home.
I hardly slept that night. Many memories and emotions flooded me. Most of all, Amma's absence in that house was itself a smothering presence. I exchanged messages with my wife. I wished she and my son were there. I cried a lot more, and always silently. A few times, Thambi, who was sharing the room with me, seemed to sniffle just like me, like he had a cold, only he didn't, or was it allergies? I wondered if he was actually awake and thinking the same thing about me.
In the end, I had fulfilled one of Amma's last wishes. She had wanted me to come from wherever I was to perform her last rites. She had told me just a few weeks earlier, and it was my duty as her elder son. But there was one other wish I could never fulfill, which was for me to be with her during her last hour. So, if I had a first wish, I wish I could go back in time just once, and hold her hand as she passed from this world.
[ Part 1 - Into the Maelstrom ] [ Part 2 - Blessings in Disguise ] [ Part 3 - Crucible of Pain ]
RSS Feed