He got through it. It was certainly a difficult journey, but he did not give up.
Sickness of our loved one is a distressing thing to see, we feel helpless, as we can’t do anything to ease their pain. I have always known him to be strong willed, an active person living a disciplined life. Ever since we were kids, we used to hear him going out for jogging early morning, every day with his cane stick, making a ‘tock,tock’ sound whenever he climbed down from the stairs. He used to follow his daily routine vigorously, with punctuality as one of its indispensable characteristics.
I used to give him his evening tea at the exact time that he wanted, making us follow his trait. His garden used to be our playground, together we dug out potatoes, watered the green vegetables, and cleaned the weeds. When he retired, his love for sports and reading kept him busy. His inquisitive mind always makes him knowledgeable and strong. Whenever I go home for holidays and have a talk with him, his first question will be ‘How is the food there, it must be tasty, the food that I want to eat is what you eat there, I am tired of eating rice everyday’. ‘How big is the place? How many Meitei’s are there?’ and so on.
But when I see him on the hospital bed, with all the saline drips and injections, it saddened me to think that a person, who was so active, now is confined to the bed, needing help from his loved ones. Even though his body is weak, his mind is still strong. He called us by our name and wants us to be there near him, next to him. Before he was hospitalized, he used to say “Even though it’s time for me to go, I still want to live for another two more years, that’s it, no more than that. I may be selfish but I want to see myself become 90”
Since he has that determination, we did not want to give up on him, not yet. We also want to give up only when we try whatever we had in our hands and blame the age that it’s time for him to go now. We want him to live till the end. As we still want to spend more time with us. Sometimes it’s really hard to accept the truth. Everyone has to die one day. This is the only truth that is universal, but even after knowing it; we don’t want to accept it. The fact that we are losing him, I didn’t want to accept that. After all I am a selfish human, and I do want to spend more with him.As time went by, my grandfather was becoming critical.
His condition was worsening to the extent that doctors have informed us to prepare ourselves as with his old age, it’s difficult to recover. But one can call it a miracle, or our prayers being answered or his strong will to survive, he became better. His internal bleeding stopped, he started to accept liquid diets, drinking even half a cup of water a day is a big milestone for him. Slowly, each day he is improving. He started to have solid foods. His blood count increases. He survived through dialysis, which is quite risky when performed on senior patients.But he made through it with his will and our prayers.
Even the same doctors, who told us to prepare ourselves, were amazed at his improvement.My whole family rejoices again. The dark clouds above us did not rain and it moved on somewhere else.
He is still weak, under the care of my family members but what amazed me is the power of his strong will power and determination. Or maybe it’s not his time yet, maybe he has to spend more time with us. Maybe I will get to see him again when I go home next holiday.
But what I learned from him is not to underestimate the strength of will power. Not to neglect what determination can do, as long as you believe in it. As long as you believe in it.
And I do wonder, whether I inherited that kind of will power from him, maybe someday when I need it, I hope it will come out.
