The foreboding gloom indicates the torrential monsoon is about to hit the Eastern Ghats. Here, the monsoon arrives in manic rage with the sky clad in menacing grey. The ghostly white downpour impedes all necessary routines of life. Life stands still in limbo and allows nature to have its way with reality. No one interferes, no one argues, no one complains. Everyone, everything, waits with indefinite longing, for it to be over. For the storm to pass, for life to continue, to exist without the imminent threat of extinction. The black soil rejoices as the monsoon quenches its thirst. The critters, the fishes, the flowers, and the climbers are waiting within their nests to explode into a new life. From the resting slumber, all life revives, after the monsoon sweeps through the Eastern Ghats. I was here during the summer, and I left thinking I wouldn’t be back until next spring, but here I am. My family is navigating the specifics of treatment for my father, the inner atmosphere a reflection of the outer one.
My father had a second episode and rushed to the emergency room again. On our way to the hospital, I cradled his old frail body in my arms to protect him from the shock of the road. All the while, I was reassuring him that he would be alright. I wasn't sure if that was true. I was rubbing his skinny arm stiff with shooting pain and was thinking of all the times when he had picked me up when my legs would hurt from walking. I was thinking of when that body stood like a wall of protection between me and the rest of the world. I was not sure that he would make it. The shock and disbelief made me think it was all unreal. I was struggling to stay calm and pull myself back into the present. The next few days were all about hospital visits, procedural formalities, and updating family and friends about the current scenario. We hardly ate or slept the whole week. When he was taken for surgery, I think I prayed so hard that I shivered all day long, in anticipation of betrayed hope. I could see the despair looming on the faces of my mother and sister. Worries swirled around their deep-set eyes darkened at the corners with distress. I was afraid of losing a part of myself, the childhood I had so meticulously hidden within the abyss of memories. Every memory is guarded by the existence of the person with whom the memory is created. The person is the key, if you lose the key, the memory is forever locked away in the forgotten alley of the subconscious, only awakened in haunted dreams. I couldn’t accept that. I wasn’t ready. But can anyone ever be ready to lose a part of themselves to the volatility of life? Can anyone ever accept that they have to give up on someone whom they have known and loved beyond themselves, for their entire lives?
My friend, Nicola reminds us of such violent underpinnings of grief through her poignant portrayal of the loss she had known intimately. She mused,
“Despair has augured a fervid and audacious volatility to life: it situates one at the precipice of a black abyss that few will dare approach — even in the name of friendship, even in the name of God.”
While the sharp edges are still lacerating, she talks about how suffering leaves traces of soft surrender. It is like drinking holy water after having tasted blood, as she masterfully wrote,
“Let me speak of salvation: when the moment of truth arises that suffering, even at the fulcrum of its extremity, is only ever transitory. This is the power of empathy — the rope that wends one back to life from the darkness of despair, the salve that heals the ongoingness of grief in the wake of unspeakable tragedy.”
Although my father is back from the depths of disappearing hope, I still feel as if the eye of the storm is constantly following us, like a biblical angel who pays no heed to the significance of a mortal. I am constantly threatened by the possibility of existential grief, haunting my instinct to protect fiercely all that is mine. To call for grace, to count on every blessing sent my way. To open my heart and mind to prayers and let their immense power wash over me. I am not typically a religious person but the absence of faith in such uncertain times is akin to certain ideological death. And I do not accept that, not now, not without giving a tough fight to all such existential threats. The fight is not over yet, but at least it has temporarily halted. I think it will be a long time before I can completely rest, but until now, I have been grateful. I have found a steady mast to hold on to amid this violent storm, and I call it love.
I will leave you today, dear reader, with this accurate reflection on grief and the passing of the storm juxtaposed against the elements of nature in Mary Oliver’s 'Hurricane'. I, like her, constantly try to remind myself, that for some things like love, growth, and compassion, there are no wrong seasons.
It didn’t behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn’t stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn’t
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.
I will be back with Berkana-flavored cultural anecdotes soon. But for now, I need time to sew back together a lot of tattered ends of life.
Stay blessed!
Dear Swarnali, Sending you and your father and your extended family prayers for wellbeing and healing. So appreciate how you weave the delicacy of your love for father with the knowing of the human life cycle with its potential for pain and joy. Much love to you today xxx
This is beautiful, Swarnali. Prayers and love to you and yours.