Sunday 15 November 2009

Farewell dearest sister

It has been exactly 12 days since I lost my dear elder sister to pancreatic cancer. She was 13 years my senior and was a strong force during my formative years. She was my strongest support, my harshest critic and one of the few well wishers I have in life today. I had never known life without her, so I took her presence in my life for granted till the last 4 and a half months when the deadly cancer was detected and played havoc with her system and finally took her away. But I had never anticipated the end would come so swiftly and painfully.

All along the four and a half months I had been begging God to grant her some extra days in life. But after seeing her in the critical care unit, I begged God to take her away, to release her from all physical suffering and mental agony. Even as she breathed her last, she looked as beautiful as she always was. Indeed God plucked the most beautiful flower from my parents' garden....

I also learnt one thing. If you are certain that God has willed something, you should not pray for something that goes against it. This is what some elders told me. Hard, but one has to accept it.

But even after 12 days since she has gone, the words 'deceased', 'dead', 'passed away', 'expired' when applied to her, hit me hard. And coping with breavement after a gap of around 21 years since my father died has become hard. So much so, it can be mistaken to be a physical illness...Bereavement and grief trigger breathlessness, drop in immunity, nausea and severe bodyache. All of this me and another sister of mine are suffering from...

After the finality of death, coping with beareavement and grief comes the prospect of moving on. As I key in this blogpost from my hotel room in central London, I am far away from home, and from her grave. But last few days, I have prayed like never before. The verses of my faith have started coming to naturally to me and as they comforted my sister when I recited them in her ears before the end came, they comfort me now.

Its far too soon to come out of mourning and start looking at business as usual. But a job has to be done and work has to go on. But after her demise, I feel something in me has changed. Cannot pinpoint it, but the change is there. The coming months will shape the change, hone it, finetune it so that it emerges clearly within me. Death is the final frontier. With one person gone, it changes many around the person who left. In work and management we are constantly talking about change management. Personal life has taught me, some changes can never be managed. You change irrevocably with the change. You cannot measure it. Life never becomes the same again.

So farewell, dear sister. May you rest in peace. I am sure you are at a better place than we are. And you will be there to welcome us when the time comes....