Member-only story
PERSONAL ESSAY
I Told My Father He Could Die
And I have not been the same since.
Non-members read here.
Ever since my father died, the world has drastically changed for me. It feels as if I have new lenses and I see the world differently.
I always knew that every person has to die but to see someone die in front of my eyes was altogether a different experience.
My father fought with death for two hours straight. I say this because I saw him suffocate for those very hours. I was his companion as he transitioned to a world of unknown.
At 8 P.M., he had two spoonful of oats and began breathing heavily. His throat started producing a rattling sound which I had never heard before. At first, I saw a dread in his eyes as he looked around the room.
I scanned the room too. I saw nothing and I would also never know what he saw in the first place or did he even see anything? No one would ever know.
Taking the cue, my mother put few drops of Ganges water into his mouth and Tulsi leaves. After a while, his eyes stopped moving, they were fixed on the opposite side of the wall.
When I asked him if he could see me, he nodded a bit. But the dread in his eyes did not leave. He breathed heavily from the…
