O Father, My Father…
Have you seen a banyan tree?
The ficus benghalensis develops secondary roots that drop drown from the tree’s branches. These go on to form trunks, which sprout branches, which sprout more secondary roots…
You get my point. The tree can spread infinitely. There’s a place near my home, called the Big Banyan. It is an ancient banyan tree, spread over 3 acres of land.
It’s a forest, and yet a single tree.
Each and every one of us is like root of a banyan. Think about it; you have parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, and it goes on and on right back till the dawn of humanity. An exponential series that you trace back from each parent, each grandparent.
For me, the focal point, however, is my father.
The authority figure from childhood, and now, a grand old tree, with roots running deep and wide, gnarled bark, and enormous canopy — this is my favorite simile.
And yet, however grand and old and huge, however eternal and immovable it seems, a tree is still vulnerable. How much more, a physically frail human being…
Last Sunday morning, Dad opened the gate and stepped out for a walk.
And crashed down on his side on the road, as his foot betrayed him. Six feet two inches of wiry 85-year-old on the road.
Result: broken and dislocated arm and hip.
Ours is a traditional Indian family and we live with our parents. Home is usually bedlam, with my parents, my special needs son, and the two of us in different corners of the house, cheerfully yelling out to make ourselves heard, with my father hands down in the lead with his still booming voice.
And then one fine morning, it wasn’t. The house was in hushed stillness as Mom and I sat anxiously at home with my still sleeping son. My husband rushed Dad to the hospital. He’s still in the hospital recovering from the surgery.
My son woke, came running downstairs, and there was no Grandpa to boom “Krishna, Krishna, good morning! 1, 2, 3, 4, good morning!” There was no Pa to ruffle his head and sneak him out into the garden before Ma chased after him with his toothbrush. Grandma was unusually quiet and absent-minded.
My son obviously knew something fishy was going on and escalated his behaviors.
We spent the rest of the week wondering what if. What if Dad had gone a little later or sooner… what if the order of events at home had been shuffled a little, would it have made a difference? That morning, a lab tech had come home to collect blood samples for our routine tests. Dad had stepped out while still talking to him and had slipped and fallen. Suppose he hadn’t called him? Suppose Dad had been the last to give his samples instead of the first?
It’s easy to spiral into negativity when you question what’s already done and dusted. Yet it’s human nature to question, wonder, and wish, isn’t it?
Positivity is there too, if you hunt for it a little hard.
What’s positive about breaking your arm and hip at this age, you might ask. Why should you break them!
Let me tackle the first question.
For one, Dad chose a Sunday morning for his accident!
Sunday: my husband was home. The lab tech was there. Plus, a delivery van had just come then, with 3 able men in it. Immediate help was at hand, to lift my Dad into the car when we couldn’t get an ambulance.
Dad slipped just at the gate, in full sight of the house.
He hadn’t gone off down the road, when who knows when we would have known about the fall. Our gated community roads are quite deserted most of the times.
So if this accident had to happen, it still happened where we could get Dad medical help within 15 minutes.
As to why Dad should have fallen at all, well. Those whys never have an answer. There was no answer to the why when my son regressed. Our world twisted on it’s axis. Nothing has ever been the same since. It will never be; my 10-year-old is now less capable than he was at 2. I’ve wasted years raging, feeling miserable, and spiraling down, down, down… Asking such whys.
What is the use of this?
There are no answers. And it doesn’t help at all, being miserable. I learnt that being miserable because of circumstances is a choice. Because it is a choice we make, isn’t it? The glass half full or half empty choice? And sometimes it is the only choice we have; the only freedom that is left; the only variable that we can control.
It is tough. It is very tough. But think of it this way: There are always two sides to a coin, and two sides to every event.
While it’s easy, so easy, to lose yourself in the negativity, don’t!
Take that extra effort to see the positive side, however hard it may be.
I’m still hunting for what could possibly be positive in my son’s regression
But it’s there. That positive twist. I just need to look harder.
