Scared of Death

Time’s flying by and when I say flying by I mean seriously! Whoosh and a week, month and year have all gone by. All of sudden, I feel like I’ve reached the midpoint of my entire life. After I lost my dad in 2019 death became more real than ever. I’ve often pondered over the matter.

Off late, I’m reminded quite often, subconsciously that I’ve finished one half of my life and that at any given point in time in the next half I might reach the end of my earthly journey. To be honest it makes me shudder. My main worry being putting my family through the agony of losing me. I keep hoping and praying to God that I don’t leave till my kids are independent and settled down with their spouses and kids. I’ve never felt so shaken by the thought of my own death until I lost my dad. Till then my world felt perfect. Although I was lonely, at least the people whom I cared about were around. It gave me a feeling of comfort. He left and I started to feel like I’m standing on shaky ground.

There are days I wake up and feel scared and sad that one day I’ll have to leave behind the people I love. Not sure if anyone else has ever felt this way when they touched their 40s. Sometimes death is so sly and sneaky, it is thrown at us at unawares, just like how my dad died when I least expected it. News floating around of young people who die of illnesses or unexpectedly does not help either but adds to the anxious thoughts of “when will my turn come.” Will it be sooner than I thought it would come or will I make it to settle my kids. I do my best to train my kids to be as independent as possible. Who knows what will happen the next day. Only God can perfect everything that concerns me.

So I carry on. I wish the days would go slow but they don’t. I wish I could hold my kids as babies forever but I can’t. They say time and tide wait for none. How true that saying! Everything changes slowly but surely and sometimes we leave without even knowing what a change our departure will wrought in someone’s life. May God bless everyone with a long life. May this blessing be sure. As our ancestors lived to see their generations generation, may we also be blessed with the same mercy.

Grieving some more…

It’s just one of those glum days. Those awful days, when I terribly miss my dad and feel hopeless at the thought of never being able to see him again. All the material things he left behind live on, and yet he isn’t around. A hard truth to digest.

My last trip to India was when I felt like he was the very essence of my being. I saw all his clothes stocked up in the cupboards and honestly I didn’t have it in me to sort through them or give them away. As far as I know, nothing of his will leave that home as long as I’m breathing. Nor will the yearning to have him around die.

His home is nothing without him. The very spirit of the home felt dead. Seriously, how does one get out of this rut within the mind? They say time heals all wounds. But I’ve felt my wounds from dad’s demise grow deeper and deeper as the days go by.

The trip also called for war. War against evil, against people who tried to steal what was dad’s. It was only by God’s grace we were victorious. In the end, it was dad’s victory. The victory of good over evil.

Although I celebrated the victory God gave me, certain things didn’t go as I had planned. I’ve mentioned countless times on my blog about how I’d never forgive my mother for murdering my dad. Yet, not because of who she was but because of who I am, I wanted her to have a decent ending and hence I decided to set her up well in my dad’s home. However fate had decided otherwise. My mom lost her strength and fell. On the first day she managed to pick herself up. The second day things took a turn for the worse. She fell and she never got back up on her legs. She had fallen down late evening and was on the floor till such time I reached dad’s home the next day morning and managed to get external help to come lift her up onto the bed. Even then her back had lost the ability to hold her up straight. She lay helplessly on the bed. She was soaked in urine. It was then that I decided she needed more care than anyone around could offer her, and I moved her into the hospice.

The hospice is heaven for those who are in agony or pain. They take lovely care of all their patients. My mother was neat and clean for the first time since I had reached Chennai. However, being the covert being that she was, she was not happy with the social and friendly environment that existed there. The last day I visited her before I left Chennai filled me with sour memories.

I won’t deny my disappointment of not having her in dad’s home. I somehow wanted to keep his home alive and give it a new lease of life. I also wanted to give my mother the end she desired, to complete her life in dad’s home. However, God’s plans weren’t what I had planned out and tried to execute. They were far different.

There hasn’t been a day that I’ve not thought about my mother and how she’s surviving socially. She may have been happy alone, living life on her terms in dad’s home but she was living in a stench that was unbearable. So I take heart that she’s clean and being fed three proper meals each day. Although there is nothing between us, no feelings whatsoever, I guess I’m still grieving the mother I thought I had.

Recovery from narcissistic abuse is brutal. One day I think I’ve gotten over everything but the very next day I find myself sobbing like a 3 year old who couldn’t find her favourite toy. I really wonder how people carry on in life after dealing with so much. For today, I miss my daddy and I miss the mummy I thought I had. The grieving seems never-ending. So today I grieve some more for both of them.