He got through it. It was sure a difficult journey, but he did not give up.
Sickness of our loved one is 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 climb down from the stairs. He used to follow his daily routine vigorously, with punctuality as one of its indispensable character.
I used to give him his evening tea at the exact time that he wanted, making us to follow his trait. His garden used to be our playground when we were kids. Together we helped him digging out potatoes, watering the green vegetables, cleaning out the weeds.
When he got retired, his love for sports and reading, keep him busy. His inquisitive mind always makes him knowledgeable and strong. Whenever I go home for holidays and have a chat with him, his first question will be ‘How is the food there, 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 on the bed, needing help from his loved ones and hospital staffs. 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 tried what ever we had in our hands and blame on 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. 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 goes by, my grandfather, he was becoming critical. His condition was worsening to the extend that doctors have informed us to prepare ourselves as with his old age, it’s difficult to recover.
But one can call it miracle, or our prayers being answered or his strong will to survive, he became better.
His internal bleeding stop, he started to accept liquid diets, drinking even half 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 old patients, as there are cases where one cannot get through during dialysis. And amazingly, 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 rained and it moved on somewhere else. For now, he is still weak but recovering slowly. He is discharged after staying a month at hospital, feeling better than before.
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 may be its 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, may be some day when I need it, i hope it will come out.
