The Dichotomy of Grief and Survival

Virah
Virah
Jul 30, 2017 · 3 min read

Today it has been four months since Baba left Maa and I. It is also Maa’s birthday, the first one without Baba, and sitting 8400 miles away from her, I find myself confused. There are so many ways to articulate the bond we share with our parents and yet so few to express the emotions associated with these relationships. If anything Maa and I have kept ourselves busy with work, mostly a distraction from confronting the memories of the past. Baba almost left us so many times in the last 10 years of his battle with cancer and yet nothing prepared us for that final moment of separation. We tell ourselves that Baba is still there, still looking over us and smiling on days we move a bit closer to what he wanted for us.

However, the difference lies in our social setting. Maa is surrounded by people; people some of whom care, some sympathetic enough to ask her well being every other week over Whatspp, some truly worried for her, some conniving and some painfully indifferent. I, on the other hand, am surrounded by no one. I can hear my heart sink every time I miss Baba. I can see the endless road when driving to my favorite park. If the topic of Baba ever comes up, it is swiftly and sometimes artistically slipped under the rug, followed by awkward smiles or more often by gently averting eye contact. I understand…

I dream of Baba often and unlike what one might expect, they are mostly disturbing. Getting up and making it to work, the beige, black and white of the office and my computer make failed attempts to fill the spaces in my head. It is evening back in India and Maa is packing up from work, particularly upset on days when people criticize her for wearing a bindi, a mark on the forehead typically worn by married Hindu women. Some mock her, some say she has moved on, some simply that she has lost her mind. While by the time I get my lunch, I have already had a couple vain conversations and laughed at the end of unfunny jokes. Pretending doesn’t help me but it works, at least superficially.

Last week, Maa was very busy so I barely got to talk to her. And amidst all the deadlines at work, I yearned being back home, tapping on the support of my extended family, friends and “well-wishers”. It therefore came to me as a shock that Maa in fact wanted to swap places with me, being away from people constantly judging her for her life choices, given that she is a “widow” now. While the societal ties in India were stifling Maa’s independence, the stark societal independence in the US was overwhelming me with insensitivity. May be both of us , and probably more people like us, should be shunned away to an island where at least we will have each other to support. Or may be not, that would be too radical. May be breathing at the end of every unexpected sob is what remains to be done. For now, I will give it a shot, one more time.