THE MAN WHO REFUSES TO LEAVE | RELATIONSHIPS
A Father Drowns in Grief
But my heart was a stone
He stood tall with a head that was too heavy for his neck. His hand rested on the railings of the stairs.
“My daughter is in the ambulance. Please tell your husband to have a look at her,” he pleaded.
I was at a loss. My husband, Deb, had returned exhausted after doing emergency duty for two days in a row. He had just dropped off into a deep slumber. I did not have the heart to wake him up.
“The hospital is just ten minutes away from here. There you will get all the doctors you need,” I assured him.
He hung his head lower.
“Please doctor, wake your husband up,” he insisted.
I did not know what to do next. What a strange man! This was our home and not a hospital. We did have a one-room clinic on the ground floor but that did not cater to severely ill patients who needed intensive care provided in tertiary hospitals.
“Please understand that I cannot wake him up. He is extremely tired and needs to rest,” I told him.
The pressure cooker was whistling. He just stood on the stairs leading to our front door in silence. Leaving him there, I rushed back to the kitchen. I had to finish my household chores before I left for work at 9.30 a.m. It was already past 9 a.m. and I could not waste time standing with him.
What was so special about the patient that she had to be seen by only my snoring husband and no one else? I did not want to volunteer my services as a doctor at that moment. If I did, my children would have to forego their lunch.
Besides, he wanted only Deb to attend to her. What a funny man and an irritating one too, I thought to myself. When I came back to the front door after fifteen minutes or so, he was still there, waiting! I was flabbergasted. How could he just wait there with his sick daughter in the ambulance?
Horns were blaring down below. The ambulance was probably obstructing the slender hilly road. Our four-story building was built in such a way that you could lean a bit over the balcony wall, lose your balance and plop down on the head of an unsuspecting pedestrian and squash him like a ripe tomato. Of course, such a disaster was yet to happen. But I did not mind it a bit, the overhanging balcony I mean.
Perched upstairs on my fourth-floor flat, I squinted through the toy telescope to see what vegetables the roadside sellers had in their carts. I then aimed ten rupee coins at them. When the seller looked up in surprise, I pointed to the vegetables I needed. They came up the stairs happily to deliver them to me. It saved me the trouble of running down and up again to get my veggies. I love my excess weight and my rotund appearance and intend to keep it.
“Why don’t you take her immediately to the hospital? Why are you wasting precious time standing here? Please go to the hospital as soon as you can. I know what needs to be done,” I reprimanded him.
Despite myself, anger had crept into my words. He chose not to hear me and stood with his head bent low.
What could Deb possibly do with a critically ill patient here? He would refer her to the hospital. But this man would not listen to me. He wanted to hear these same words from the sleeping male doctor. Did he not understand that he was dead tired and needed to sleep?
I always had limited stores of patience. I realised to my chagrin that I almost exhausted it and the day had not even started. I rushed back in to get ready. Deb was in deep slumber. As I started towards the stairs to leave, he was still there waiting!
“I cannot wake him up! How many more times do I need to tell you this? I am going to the hospital now,” I told him.
“Madam, so you are going away! Please wake him up. My daughter is very sick. In fact, she is dead. This father’s heart knows that she is dead. I just want confirmation from your husband, Doctor. If he confirms what I know, I will turn the ambulance back and take her home. Please wake him up. He has been treating her for a long time,” he stood with folded hands, tears glistening in his eyes.
My bag fell off my shoulders in shock. I rushed back inside, blinded with tears.
“Get up. You must get up now!” I shook Deb with all my might.
Groggy with sleep, he muttered, “ Whatever happened?”
I waited, praying. “Forgive me, oh God. Let him be wrong. Let her live! Let her live! I will never behave like this again. Let her live.”
Deb took a long time to come back. When he did, his face told it all.
“Do….you…think she died waiting for you…here?” I asked, anxiously.
“No, she has been dead for at least four hours.”
Life is a butterfly. Time is fleeting and its management, an art. In the busiest of times, a moment when extracted for another should be laced with kindness and patience. For regrets weigh heavy on the soul and the butterfly can hardly flap its wings anymore.
