The Home and The Heart, Postscript

I trust I have not wasted breath:
I think we are not wholly brain,
Magnetic mockeries; not in vain,
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death;

Not only cunning casts in clay:
Let Science prove we are, and then
What matters Science unto men,
At least to me? I would not stay.

Let him, the wiser man who springs
Hereafter, up from childhood shape
His action like the greater ape,
But I was born to other things.

I had not intended to write this series.  But over time, I realized that the pain of that period still lingered in me.  I felt responsible for all that had happened.  To see a loved one go through so much pain and suffering is not easy, especially if that pain and suffering is a result of decisions that were made.  She trusted me to make those decisions, and I made them with the utmost care.  I read every medical journal that talked about valve thrombosis, the various approaches to treating it, the risks of thrombolysis versus re-do valve surgery, the mechanics of heart bypass, the mechanism and aftermath of embolic strokes, and so on.  I asked innumerable questions to her doctors.  I got second opinions.  I read of thrombolytic agents and which ones to use and what dosage was to be applied.

But in the end, our hand was forced by her deteriorating condition and by the many doctors who told us there was no other way but to operate on her.

Before giving our consent to heart surgery, I had asked her a question.  I had asked her if I was in a similar situation, if my heart had failed, and all the doctors were telling us that surgery was my only option, would she have tried to persuade an unwilling me to go through with it?  To my continued distress to this day, she had said that she, gentle and loving as she is, would have not.

Perhaps she did not realize the gravity of her situation.  But the fact remains that I, advised by the doctors, made her agree to the re-do surgery.

We, or rather I, made the decision to go in.  I was the one who signed the consent form, acknowledging that I understood the risks.  I live with that decision, and its aftermath.

Though it is not part of the standard protocol, I wish I had asked the hospital to do a brain scan on her during the 40 hours that she was unconscious after her heart surgery.  I wish I knew that there was major risk of a vascular accident during or after her surgery and I wish we had caught the stroke in time.  In the aftermath, I asked the attending surgeons and doctors to revise their protocol to include this check, but I do not know if anything will come of my recommendation.

But I was not, and am not, a medical professional.  I trusted the hospital and the doctors and the medical journals.  But my wife - she only trusted me.  I cherish this trust, but I also have to live with the responsibility of this trust.

If I was an illiterate man who had little idea of pressure gradients in the heart, I would have taken the relatively easier path of just accepting the doctors' decisions.  I would not have made them "my" decisions.  I would have obeyed the experts and accepted every procedure, every complication, fatalistically.  But I was born to know, and to question, and so I also have to live with the limits of my knowledge and with the limited knowledge of the experts.  They, and I, tried to do their best, but it was not good enough.

The difference is: the doctors went home and attended to other patients the next day.  My wife's post-surgical complications would be a statistic in their long career.  But for my wife, and for me, our life was transformed in those few days.  We, as all patients, have to live the rest of our lives with the consequences, while for the doctors it is, hopefully, a learning.

It was not their fault.  I believe they tried their very best.  I hold no bitterness toward them.

This pain in me is mine own.  It is irrational, but I do not deny it.

It is not unlike the pain of a mother who kissed and goaded her unwilling child into the school bus, and the child later bled to his death in a bus accident.  She was hardly "responsible".  She did everything out of immense love and with the very best of intentions.  But if you are at all human, you will understand her guilt.

To heal the pain of that decision of mine, and the immense suffering for her that followed, this series is an attempt at what I can only term as Penance.  It is my cross to bear, and through my writing, I hope to, perhaps, forgive myself.

The second reason is to give anybody who reads this series a message of hope and love.  To give the reader a sense of home and of being away from it, and what it means to one's heart.  To communicate the power of love.  To tell the reader that it is possible to transcend tragedy and darkness.  It may not always be possible, and every story is different, but our story ends as a beginning.  We were fortunate, and blessed, to have come through, and I wanted to share this tale of overcoming.

Lastly, this series is a tribute to my wife, and to the love in her heart.  She is a marvelous woman: simple, loving and truthful.  She has not seen much of the world, and perhaps because of that, she is innocent in a way that is rare and remarkable.

She will perhaps never want to, or be able to, write her story in the way I have done.  She may never read it.  It will be too traumatic for her to recall those times in this detail.  But her story needed to be told, I feel.  She is of this earth, an unknown woman, but this story of her struggle needed to be better known.  It is my homage to her resilience, her patience, and to her fortitude.

I thought I knew much.  But she has taught me much more.

...

Through this, I remain grateful to our two friends, and our siblings, especially my younger brother, who all shall remain unnamed, and who gave us their time, their energy and their affection.  To her parents, and to mine, who worried for us and sent her their prayers.  And to our well-wishers, who remained concerned for our well-being.

The Home and The Heart, part IX

Chapter IX

Post Tenebras, Lux

I am reborn.  I have come through. 

When I was born the first time, the first child, the daughter, I was named after the full moon.  And today, as then, I am bathed in light.

From the bottomless labyrinth of the deepest despair, I have risen.  I have crept and I have crawled and I have climbed, and climbed till I could breathe no more, and I see the sun now.

There was that time, and a dreadful time it was, when I did not even dream.  I was in the darkest valley one could scarce imagine, and I was all alone.  I did not know how I had fallen, and how I would rise again.  They had broken my back and my ribs, and they had put daggers into me.  I had bled in cascades to within a whisper of death.

I was parched and not a drop of water did I find.  My tongue and my lips had become heavy with salt.  I could hear nothing but strange sounds of creatures I had never seen or known of.  In that dreamless dark night, I floated endlessly.  I tried to hold on to something, anything, that could bear my mass, but there was nothing.  I felt weightless, emotionless, thoughtless.  That world was empty, and endless, and without relief.

But the faint embers of my life had not totally extinguished.  They pulsed with the little drops of blood that were left in my broken frame.  My heart was beating, ever so feebly, with little to flow in my veins.  With only one hand, my left, I tried to pour the elixir of hope on those embers.  But there was no hope left in me.

As night flowed into endless night, I saw, or did I dream? a distant light.  A faint light it was, but it was there.  That soothing light made the infinite darkness seem less frightful.

That light was not unfamiliar, but I did not recognize it fully then.

Was this the light that I had seen eons ago?  Its memory seemed buried in a far corner of my being.  Was this the light around which I had circled one day? It was that, wasn’t it?

I was tired beyond my limits.  I wanted to just sleep forever, but that light!  That light danced and that light came closer and caressed my shattered limbs.  As I slipped into slumber, toward eternal sleep, that light gently shook me again into wakefulness.

That light became my hope.  If there was this light, this darkness surely was not endless, it had its end.  It was not infinite, as it had seemed.

As I, with effortless effort, rose from my tired slumber, the light entered me and lit me from within.  I held it, or did it hold me I wonder.  I would not let it go now.  I treasured it, nourished it, and made it my most precious friend.

My fears and pains were there still, but that radiance made them bearable.  I breathed in the air around me.  With that light in me, the air was no longer a stranger.  I could not speak, nor was there another soul to hear my silence.  But that light within my being told me that I was not alone.

It told me that I had many dreams to dream, that I had many mountains yet to see, that many swans and seagulls were waiting for me in their oceans.  That I was again going to kiss that red sparrow in my orchid that used to prance near my feet. That what was broken could be made whole again.  

But I had to follow the light and not get lost again.

As I let that light be my guide, it gave me strength and hope.  I thought my journey toward the sun was going to be eternal, but the light whispered to me that it wasn’t.  That only if I did not give up, only if I kept walking through my despair, I would find that my despair was not my master.  That I would overcome it.

And through many strange mazes and tunnels and doorways did I pass.  And I kept on.  Resolute, hopeful, fearful, I kept on.

As I emerged into the light of the sun and fulfilled my destiny, I realized, with bliss, what that inner light was.  The light of the sun was much grander, and astonishing to behold, but my own light inside of me was its part.

The light of the sun and the light within me had become one.  They merged, and showed me that I was that light.

That light was love. 

Because I had found and cherished love in my heart, I was able to see love beyond me.  And that love, within and without, was me.  

I had become love.  I was love.  I am love.  

My glow, which isn't only mine anymore, is the absolute utter and pure benediction of life.

My journey from darkness to light doesn't end here, as my journey in light has just begun.  The mountains and the oceans await me.  As it once was, so it shall be again, that I shall be true to my name, and I shall take my ancient place with the stars.

I stretch my arms and my love expands to all that is visible and invisible.  I was adrift, and now I am home.  And my home and my heart are one.

I bless all those who are lost, and those who are on their journey.  May all those who drift into darkness find their light again.  May their hearts be home.

ॐ असतोमा सद्गमय । Lead us from the unreal to the real
तमसोमा ज्योतिर्गमय । Lead us from darkness to light
मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय ।। Lead us from death to deathlessness
ॐ शान्ति शान्ति शान्तिः ।।  May there be peace in all

The End

The Home and The Heart, part VIII

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Chapter 8

A Few Thousand Words

Before the Calamity

On the brink

In Darkness

The First Sleep at Home

After the Haircut

And, A few Months Later

(to be concluded)

The Home and The Heart, part VII

I know that this was Life,—the track
Whereon with equal feet we fared;
And then, as now, the day prepared
The daily burden for the back.

But this it was that made me move
As light as carrier-birds in air;
I loved the weight I had to bear,
Because it needed help of Love:

Chapter 7

The Weightless Weight

She was home.  She was extraordinarily weak.  She had lost fifteen pounds during that banishment away from home.  Her body was tattooed with innumerable needle pricks and internal bleeds.  Her hair were in shambles.  But she was at peace.

As she entered her home, she breathed in the long-desired, long-awaited air of her past, and absorbed the love and belonging that was all hers.  Her soul was soothed, and her restlessness went away as she took step after step inside her house.  She looked around with tired eyes, and the sight of every little familiar thing gave her nourishment.  That chair!  That towel!  That mirror!  She became languorous, and lay down in her bed and went to sleep.  I could not have enough of looking at her sleeping peacefully in her own room, the room that was built of affection and understanding.  I had waited for this day for so long.  Her own pillow, her blanket that smelled of love and jasmine, offered her the embrace of her own world.

I felt as if we had just married, and this was my bride coming to her conjugal home.

In the coming weeks and months, I knew that we both had to climb a steep mountain, whose peak we could not yet see from here below.  Without saying anything, we were joined in our resolve.  We were together now, and our love would see us through to the other side.  Together, we would climb.  Holding hands, walking shoulder to shoulder, we would climb.  We would get tired, and we would catch our breath, rest for an afternoon, and with renewed resolve, we would climb.

It was an immense vindication of our decision to come back home "against medical advice" that she healed as if miraculously.  She started walking within a few days.  She never needed a cane, what to speak of needing a wheelchair.  Her right arm, though very weak, was moving again.  Though I had brought a supply of thick liquids for her, she never had a need for those.  She started having normal liquids.  In tiny gulps, ever so slowly, but she tasted water and milk and tea and coffee again.  She would cough, and learn to swallow properly, and try again.  And she started chewing again.  It was utterly remarkable.  And immensely fulfilling for both of us.

I bathed her, and fed her, and held her as she tried to walk, and made her again see the trees, the rivers, the birds, the sun, the moon and the stars.  Nature took over, and she slowly regained her weight and her strength.  I tried to engage some therapists, but it was hard to find a good one.  And by necessity and by desire, I ended up as her therapist.  I made her do little exercises every day, and fed her milk shakes, smoothies, eggs, porridge, and bowls of soup.

She started smiling again, and every little victory over her condition gladdened her heart.  Her headaches were now a thing of the past.  She was on her way to becoming herself again.

We never spoke about the hospitals and of our trials there.

Her eyes would well up when she saw her wedding bangles, or an ornate dress, or the photos from our journeys.  But as I held her in my arms, her tears would stop, and she would be at peace again.

A day after her homecoming, I took her to a hair salon.  The hairdresser looked at her hair and stepped back in horror when I told her we needed to cut them short.  She would not do it.  It was a sacrilege, she said.  She could not bear to cut such long hair and have them fall on the floor.  It had taken years and decades for those long hair to be, and it seemed so ruthless to put scissors to them.  But I convinced her that there was no other way, that the hair were matted beyond redemption, and she with immense gentleness slowly cut them short.  My wife did not flinch during that session, and when afterward she looked at herself in the mirror, she looked almost fashionably modern.

To climb a mountain is difficult only if one does not want to climb.  To a mountaineer, or to one on a pilgrimage, every step of the ascent is sacred, and fulfilling.  The legs may get tired, but one can rest.  The strength comes only partly from the muscle.  The real strength is in the heart.

(to be continued)

The Home and The Heart, part VI

तुम जो सोचो वो तुम जानो हम तो अपनी कहते हैं
देर न करना घर जाने में वरना घर खो जायेंगे

You are wise perhaps, but I will speak my own truth
Do not be late in coming, or your home will be no more.

किन राहों से दूर है मंज़िल कौन सा रस्ता आसाँ है
हम जब थक कर रुक जायेंगे औरों को समझायेंगे

Which paths lead nowhere, and which paths lead to home
Weary from our own journey, we shall teach others.

Chapter 6

The Way Home

Every day was a day of hope for her, that today at last I would take her home.  But every day, her hopes were dashed.  The hospital was ready to send her away but not to home.  Instead, they insisted, and I reluctantly agreed, that she should go to another kind of hospital, where she could undergo intensive therapy.

They scheduled her departure on a Saturday, and there were some delays in the paperwork.  It was possible that she had to stay for another few days.  I would not, could not, accept that.  I knew that she was at the end of her tether, and she would not, could not, bear me again telling her that she could not leave.  That would crush her spirit, perhaps irrevocably.  In her fragile mind, she now had a hazy idea that it was now only a matter of another day.  On Thursday, and on Friday, she said: “Today is the day, right?  We are going to go, right?”

I made dozens of calls, to her insurance, to the hospitals, to her case manager, to her attendants, and made the paperwork move through.  Everything was ready, but the hospital was not able to arrange an ambulance for her to leave.  But I would not let her stay in that building for another day, even if that meant I had to carry her in my arms.

And I did.  I carried her, and had her sit in our car, and she looked at the outside world with surprise as we drove to the rehabilitation facility.

Her brain swelling had receded, but there were strange headaches.  She was frightened at what must have been extremely unpleasant sensations as her brain tried to rewire itself.

The rehabilitation center was a little more peaceful than the hospital.  She had her first bath in over a month.  She finally was able to wear her own clothes.  But durations and times were not easy for her to understand.  She was left despondent as I parted from her every evening.

The emotions of being confined to hospital rooms, with little understanding of the reasons of that confinement, were building up in her.  She had left one hospital for another.  Where was her home?  Would she ever leave these rooms with the nurses and the doctors and the therapists and the unpalatable food?  Would her headaches ever end?  Would her husband ever be with her for the night?

The cover of clouds had shifted, but a ferocious tempest was building up on the horizon.  Occasionally, and out of nowhere, there were downpours.  Oh look, there was a glimmer of the sun, but the swirling clouds soon eclipsed it again.  Without warning, the winds howled and then died down.  There were distant flashes of lightning, and the birds who were protecting their nests trembled at every sound of thunder.  Would they survive the storm?

It was a Saturday.  Like any other day, I drove to the rehab hospital to be with her.  As I entered the room, she was lying on her side, with what seemed like a smile.  But it was not a smile.  Her face was tense with emotion.  She had been waiting for me for what was to her an eternity.  She had waited and waited, and hours had passed, and days had passed, and years had passed, and I had not come.

She saw me in front of her - and exploded without warning. That entire hospital was filled with a feeble woman’s screams.  She would not stay there for another moment.  She would crawl, if she could not walk.  Her bed had guardrails, but she was ready to jump over them.  

She had been away from her home, and untold and unintelligible brutalities and indignities had been heaped on her during this time.  Who were all these people who had ravaged her body?  Why was she, the apple of her father's eye, allowed to be naked and needled in front of strange men?  What had they done to her?  What had happened?  Where was she?  Why had she, the gentle flower, been plucked and plucked till nary a petal remained?  Was there anyone else left in the world?  Her mother and her father, who had cared for her when she was an infant - and she was now again an infant - were millions of miles away.  Her brother and her sister were continents away.  Was it her destiny to spend night after lonely night in these impersonal rooms, in strange beds, looking at the walls?

She did not say any of these things.  She just screamed till her breath failed her.  But I knew.

The light inside of her was blazing as it rejected the confines of her cage.

The cruel hospital administrator wanted to sedate her.  When I asked him what, then, would he do when the sedation wore off, he replied nonchalantly: “We will continue the dose every twelve hours.”

I would not, not in a thousand years, allow my beloved to be put to sleep again.  She had risen from the cold, dark grave.  No one had the right to violate her dignity in this way, or to subdue her will to be free.  They had saved her life perhaps, but they had also savaged her.  She had been tortured enough.  She would not, not if I was there, have sedatives injected into her against her will.  She was feeble, and she was incoherent, but she was full of light.  She would not go into darkness again.

As I left the room momentarily to speak to someone, the nurses tried to inject her with something.  She pushed them away, saying words that still echo in my mind: “My husband will come and save me.  You wait and see.”  "My husband."  Her husband, who had taken the vows to protect her from harm.  Who she trusted to be right, her knight.  And who she depended on to care for her "in sickness and in health, until death do us part".  Who else was for her, then and there, what was now her entire world?  At that moment, I knew.  I would not, could not, let her down.  She would never regain her faith in her love if I came in but betrayed her, and allowed them to have their way.  That would have pushed her into a darkness worse than death.

I would not collaborate in extinguishing that blaze of life.

I realized that if I was not present that day, they would have sedated her, plunging her into depression, and seeing her lack of improvement, eventually refer her to a permanent facility for stroke victims.  And there she would remain, under sedation, under anti-depressants, on a wheelchair, away from all that was dear to her.

I put her clothes in a plastic bag.  I gathered her belongings, including the useless combs and hairbrushes.  I was made to sign a paper which stated the hospital was not responsible for her anymore, as I was taking her away “against medical advice.”  I did not hesitate, not for one moment, to sign that woeful document.  She would not stay in such a place where her humanity was to be treated with Alprazolam.

I did not know what we would do, and how we would manage on our own.  But I knew that was the right thing to do even if, once again, I had to carry her in my arms.  In my heart, I told her: "I will make you whole, my love.  I promise you.  Let us go."  She could not walk, nor eat, nor express herself.  But I would make that happen, I promised her in silence.  By all that was holy and good, I would make the flower that she was, bloom again.

In another hour, that tattered tender flower, which had been blown around by the thunderstorm and the winds into fearsome strange lands of wolves and snakes, of volcanos and deep gorges, found itself again in its familiar orchid.  Where the soil, the flowers, the trees, the very air, was its own.

The storm had passed.  There was a stillness and a fragrance of grace.

She was home.

She did not know then, or now.  But this song was written for her.

(to be continued)