Death of Sorts

I must admit here that when we were “on the threshold of being no more,” we succeeded in being more…..Unwittingly, the ‘eye’ preceded the ‘I’ and for the first time, we realized what it means to not take this life for granted.

It seemed to be over. The doctor had pronounced her dead. A surreptitious surgery beset by infections and indolence, further beefed up by outrageous alterations in her tenderly tactile anatomy. That was a vicious verdict on a not-so-vindictive day. Our senses were getting slaughtered as both of us held on to each other, flickering, yet firm to combat cancer that had reared its serpentine head to seize our mother. The next two weeks were a blur of medical jargon, interminable investigations, cursory calls, and feverish faith. It was decided or perhaps destined. ‘Mamoni’, as we lovingly called her, would need to be airborne to another city that proposed a prospect that was propitious and prevailing.

The surgery took a little more than twelve hours but intermittently the progress paused as our pulses did. While my lips pursed in prayers, his eyes strangely manifested a tomorrow that would turn true to us. At the end of the grueling, uncountable hours, the doctors looked disheveled yet derived, and she was placed in the intensive care unit for us to meet her through the frosted glass. The woman, exhausted, on the white sheets was barely recognizable but her countenance…