Prison of Life and Sorrow’s Chains
By Anonymous
I am sitting next to my father on a prayer mat this Sunday evening. The sun has just set, and we prayed our Maghrib (post sunset prayer) together. We are both sitting in silence reading our own supplications.
It is a surreal moment because after a long time there is no sound of children running around, no people talking, no noise outside, even the neighbor’s dog next door is surprisingly quiet at this moment. All my family left in the afternoon to visit grandma to console her due to the passing away of a family member. It’s just me and my dad at home sitting side by side on the floor praying for the deceased, praying for patience of loved ones, and good health of those that are alive with us.
We have not had a moment like this in a long time. I am in the moment, freeing my mind of all the daily monotonous tasks and things I need to take care of. I focus on my breath going in and out. I take a look at my dad. His beard has grown all gray with a few black hairs left. He is no longer dyeing it and has let it grow a bit longer than usual. I see a sudden change of facial expression and see him reaching for his lower back which has been hurting for some time.
I hold his hand and signal him to let go and start massaging the site of pain. He has onset of this bony pain in his lower back, lower left rib, and left kidney in waves. This type of pain comes and goes every few weeks for the past two years. His bones are getting weaker and weaker due Multiple Myeloma – a type of cancer that replaces healthy cells with cancerous plasma. It pains me to know what he is suffering from, yet he has never complained or talked about it.
My father made all kinds of sacrifices in order to provide the best education and a happy environment for us growing up. As a child I never had to go to the hospital since he would take care of me before it got bad. Not only my immediate family, but all my uncles, cousins, neighbors and even extended family who lived far away would call him as soon as they had a health issue to which my father would rush to help. Seeing all of this while growing up instilled a sense of service to our fellow human beings and at the top of it was my father. I wanted to serve him and make his life as comfortable as I could when I grew up. I wanted him to take a rest for himself, to take him to places that he and I wanted to visit, to show my gratitude for all that he did for us.
Hearing this terrible news about his health was heart shattering. I was about to graduate when I heard of his health all of a sudden! It was so unexpected. How can this be? A few days ago he was in talks about possibly getting a kidney transplant so he can stop going to dialysis, and now all of a sudden, we are told that he has cancer! I was so looking forward to graduating and working as an Engineer in America. It would have been the culmination of all the sacrifices that my parents made for my education, all the sleepless nights of working long shifts, leaving their homeland, their belongings, their loved ones to me finally succeeding academically as an Engineer and working in a place like America. I want to show him that his sacrifices did not go in vain. That his trust in us has paid off. That we can help those who are in need back home too.
During my time at UCSD my parents would not tell me things they needed help with because they did not want me to lose focus or have additional stress in addition to my academics.
I distinctly remember during my first year at UCSD when I would return home at 2 or 3am from Geisel library and go back to school again at 10AM. One day when I returned in the evening, I noticed that my dad, my brother, and my mom were not home. I asked my younger siblings, and they told me that last night my father was taken to UCSD due to a heart attack, and he had a stent inserted. I had no idea and was anguished to not be there when he needed me. It was an early warning for me to restructure my priorities.
Life does not work how we want it to work. It comes with all kinds of surprises, beautiful and ugly that we could not imagine. As we are sitting in silence, I try to give another meaning to our condition, try to see it in another light.
How many people lose their loved ones on a daily basis without even having the opportunity to say goodbye? How many families are faced with loved ones passing away on the other side of the country or the globe without even getting a chance to see them one last time? How many died just recently due to covid or many other diseases? With each and every one of us stuck in this rat race, few get the opportunity to sit with their loved ones and cherish their time on a regular basis. How many of us are faced with lifelong regret of not dedicating enough time to their parents and loved ones before they passed away? Perhaps this illness of my dad is a message for me to get out of the rat race and restructure my priorities. To be present and live meaningfully. To consider the cost of this rat race. Is it worth it? Definitely NOT!
I am reminded of a few lines of Urdu poetry by Ghalib, an Indian Poet from the 19th century:
It is an inescapable truth of life that death comes to all of us no matter how much we abhor it. During our lifetime we will see all kinds of suffering, anguish, and sorrow but that does not mean we will not have joyous occasions. We have to accept that sooner or later we are all going to die and that one by one we will lose our loved ones. Accepting this does not mean we lose all hope rather it encourages me to make the most of the time that we have with them.