I know I’ve been away for much longer than usual this time. But it’s just that at the end of the day the last thing I want to do is look at another computer. Also, life isn’t as exotic anymore. It’s the same kind of life that I had growing up. The Hero and I are enjoying the peace that comes with a simple existence. We have work, home, food, weekends, and now, a few friends as well. I have mixed feelings about my job. But that’s not unexpected, is it? When have I ever, unequivocally, loved what I was doing? The only time I ever feel completely happy is when I’m learning music but we all know I’m too materialistic to do that full time. Don’t dismiss it completely. But don’t count on that happening either. But hey, I did find a fabulous teacher and she’s offered to start classes in January once the Margazi season is over.
What spurred me to finally write is something sad, really. After a very long and valiant struggle with Alzheimer’s, my grandmother passed away.
Now, before pop-psychologists label me as the kind who needs external validation to come to terms with my grief, I must make something clear. I’m sad but I’m not looking for sympathy. Neither am I looking for the scant few who still hope I’ll write who visit this space once in a while to compose eloquent responses to this post conveying their “support for me during a difficult time”. Although I certainly can’t prevent anyone from saying they’re sorry for my loss, I’d feel compelled to distance myself from anyone who posts something melodramatic.
Just a tiny digression here… A few weeks ago, one of my colleagues’ uncle passed away and I sent an email to the person onsite who she works closely with. My email was brief. “M is on leave for a few days as there has been a death in her family. Please contact me in case any high priority issues come up.” And the guy replied something to the effect of, “Yes, she emailed me to let me know. I can only imagine the pain and suffering her cousin’s family must be going through”. Umm… No, I’m not sure anyone can.
The reason I’m writing is quite simple, really. Whenever I have trouble making sense of something, I just blog about it. Just spending the time to write about it clears my head. What disturbs me is this. Yes, it’s a sad thing when someone you love dies. But what if that death is a result of prolonged illness, a slow slip into a different world, an inability to even sit up, and deep physical suffering? Is such a death a blessing of sorts? At a superficial level, the answer seems to be, “Yes”. In her rare moments of consciousness towards the end, Ammamma (as we address our mother’s mother in Telugu) would cry loudly, and this is in her own words, about what she’d become and the state she was in. But when she was unaware of it I think she wasn’t entirely unhappy in her own little world.
I think her illness gave her an opportunity to speak freely everything she thought. She ranted against her father-in-law, a man long gone. She cried for her son who died in a train accident. She kept asking for her brother. She would be alternately affectionate and rude to her grandchildren. She never failed to point out when I visited her that I should have been wearing bangles. And she asked me on more than one occasion, “Isn’t your husband done studying yet?” Yep, she said exactly what she was thinking. It was perhaps the only opportunity a woman of her generation would ever get to say what she liked.
Is it fair then, just because it’s hard to care for a person with a disease like Alzheimer’s, to judge that death is not necessarily a bad thing? Can it really be termed as suffering? Or is it a kind of purgatory? Did she really suffer? Was she as desperately unhappy as we all thought she was? Did she really mean it when she cried out, very rarely, that she wanted to die? How aware was she of anything towards the end? Although we all have our own theories, we’ll never really know for sure.
She just slipped away little by little, day after day, over the years. And now she’s gone. But when did we really lose her? Such endless questions… What an unforgiving disease Alzheimer’s is…
