Circle of Life

A little less than three years ago, the last person I wrote about in a post dedicated to men was my father. I remember sending him a link to the post over Whatsapp but the only message he ever sent me after that was a killer dad joke. A few days after that, he died. In our family, we take jokes rather seriously. I'll never know if he ever read the blog and read about himself in his daughters' words. I will never know if he knew how much I loved him, cause I never said it. When people die, they take with them some answers and leave with us questions that continue to live.

Losing my father was like the collapse of the central pillar of my life, ever constant, ever encouraging. When I was six years old and my brother twelve, he pinned up a black cut out poster with the words 'Excellence is not a skill, it is an attitude' written boldly in white. For years we grew up reading it multiple times every day, in and out and this was the spirit he inculcated in us. When for a few fleeting childhood days of vigour I wanted to be a commercial pilot, he said become a fighter pilot. Aim for the skies. To every disinterested friend and relative, my father would proudly proclaim that his daughter was a perfectionist. He always said that his biggest achievement in life was raising his two kids. Exceedingly shy, I'd get annoyed with the attention. Today I would trade my life a million times to hear my father say two words about me. Circle of life, and death. 

My decision to pursue medicine at the age of sixteen was carved out of ambiguity. Sure I liked science, but there was no solid reason why I picked up the path of medicine- often too long and testing. He never expressed his opinion so as not to sway my decision, but I knew he was delighted. In his teenage days he had wanted to become a doctor but his father, my grandfather wasn't too keen on the idea. From what I know of both him and medicine, he would've made the finest physician- compassionate beyond reason and forever brimming with curiosity. In second year, I'd brush up my routine clinicals on him, inspecting his vitiligo patched fingers and auscultating his kind heart. He loved to be my pretend patient and he always did it with the widest smile. Today, medicine gives me more joy than anything else. I have grown to love what I do and dream about what I wish to do. To practise a continuously evolving science on the canvas of classical art and make oneself vulnerable to the frailty of human life and emotion. Apart from a little extra sleep, what more could we ask for?

One year after my dad passed away, I was an intern tasked with running around taking out blood draws and putting in all sorts of tubes. On a particularly busy post-emergency day, I met a faint seventy year old retired school teacher suffering from a heme malignancy, the name of which I do not remember.  His disease was catching up with him, taking down his blood counts and along with it, his energy. He was alone and waiting for his brother to come from his village. He needed blood but getting blood without a donor was notoriously difficult. I didn't have to do much, just make a few extra trips and convince the incharge to release a pack of red cells. I placed his IV and started the transfusion. As I was collecting and cleaning all the mess, he gently put his hand on my head and said "Beta, tell your father he should be proud of you". I paused from the hustle, looked at him and wondered what to say. "I will" is all I could. 

There are days when remembering my father is the most painful thing I do and there are days when it is the only feeling I find comfort in. Out of fear of pain, we tend to shut out the memories of the ones we loved and lost. To this day, I struggle with talking about my dad. For a long time after he died, I thought I'd never write again. Cause I couldn't get myself to write about him and there was nothing else I wanted to write about. Only today I realise, I don't write about my father, I write for him.