The ambulance never made it and as I carried his body in my arms, he breathed his last. It is 3 years today since my father passed away, and yesterday his friend, our neighbour, and father to my childhood friends passed away due to the same reasons as my dad, prompting me to write this story.
June 18th 2014, I was home to see my father. He had been ailing for a long time and was in his final days. I was flying back to New Delhi that afternoon as I lived there at the time and had everything ready.
As we woke up that morning, he seemed weak and wasn't able to move around much. He could barely utter any words as I tried to converse with him. My mother and I felt it might just be a matter of days before he's no more. There wasn't much that could be done for him at this stage. His liver had failed and there wasn't anything the doctors could do for him anymore. This was it!
It was noon and suddenly it seemed like he wasn't able to breathe normally anymore. His body seemed limp, unresponsive and his breathing progressively slowing down. I called one of the best hospitals in town, located nearby (fortunately just 0.7 miles away), and requested for an ambulance.
For whatever reasons, there was some confusion and they had no ambulances available as all were out on an emergency and gave me a number for a private ambulance operator. But after a few minutes of waiting he confirmed he couldn't make it. We had an in-house male nurse at the time to attend to my dad. We decided not to waste any more time and decided to carry him ourselves to my car and take him to the hospital.
I held my dad and lifted him from under his shoulders and the nurse carried his feet and we slowly made it towards my car in the parking. Just as we crossed the main door to my house, I heard him take his final dying breath, and in that moment I knew he was gone. I was scared and felt the blood rush to my head.
I refused to believe that he was no more, not yet! We slowly placed him into the car, my mother sat behind us and the nurse supported his head, his eyes were shut and body starting to turn pale and we buckled him to the seat and rushed! My mother who had long endured, kept comforting me all the while asking me to be brave!
In under 3 minutes we were at the hospital and as we reached the entrance to the emergency, our family doctor also the hospital's head of general medicine just happened to be walking out. I called him to examine my dad and he did so immediately and confirmed that he was no more. We took him into the emergency room and further examined him under ECG which confirmed once and for all that he had passed away...
His sickness—cirrhosis of the liver had gotten to him and yesterday to his friend.
His last rites were performed on the same evening at our local crematorium. It rained hard on that evening, but not hard enough to quell my thoughts.
I lit the pyre and after a while I just couldn't stand there and watch it burn. I was in distress but this was inevitable. I was aware that one day my time would come too!
I walked down to the river nearby and sat down on the steps going down to it. One of my closest friends accompanied me in the pouring rain, she held my hand tightly and kept consoling me that everything is going to be fine. My relatives nowhere in sight!
It took me 3 weeks to wrap up all the paperwork that follows after the passing of a family member. We cleared the mortgage to the house and other liabilities left behind after his passing. I decided to bring my car back with me to Delhi and drove back the 1550 mile journey instead of taking the flight.
Few weeks later on a weekend, my friend and I sat down at the coffee shop outside the Taj Hotel and I narrated this incident to him. My biker friend is an incredibly talented, former Colonel as well as a decorated soldier in the Indian Army. He took the opportunity to narrate how his father passed away due to a heart attack as he climbed the stairs in their house. He was climbing behind his father and managed to catch him as he collapsed and died in his arms. He said and I quote, "There is no better way to die than in the arms of your children."
As an Army soldier he has seen it all. As a traveller I have stood witness to life where I've lost a few friends in the worst ways possible. One can die in so many tragic ways. I've cheated death a few times myself.
Wouldn't we prefer to rather die peacefully and in a recognisable physical condition? I certainly agreed to that and felt that despite whatever pain and suffering my father might've had to endure in his final days, dying in the arms of his son was probably the best way to go. A luxury not everyone in this world has anymore and something that we cannot choose for ourselves! Just as we didn't choose to be born, we cannot decide most of the time, when and how we wish to die!
Someone elderly told me once that, "parents must always go before their children and it is the correct order to come to this world and leave it one day." Looking back at these moments I feel that they were both right and I hope one day to leave in the same way or perhaps atleast doing something I truly love!
Happy Father's Day Dad and RIP wherever you may be!
Follow Me: 