Personal insights from tough times

The last few days were not easy. My father's physical situation worsened suddenly, and we passed few tensed days in the hospital. Am relieved that it is over now and he is back to home, having recovered temporarily from a bout of bacterial attack. These incidents are expected of a patient of his age: he is one year away from being a nonagenarian. No worries, though. What follows is not a description of my father's suffering. Far from it: I am sharing a few snippets of insights that I got in the last few days. So, hopefully, you will not find it too boring.

First, in the absence of support from the Government for the elderly, our parents are helpless and insecure. When they need help, they feel diffident to bother those they have raised. My mother, for instance, waited through major part of the night, before she knocked my door for help, slightly after 4:30 in the morning, when my father's situation aggravated. On his hospital bed, my father was constantly worried if he was causing problems for me. I wish our parents felt more at home to ask for help and had the wherewithal to fall back on. My father had a long service life in banking but that hardly means anything now.

The second insight I want to share is that we can do more with less in our daily lives. On one of the days, I forgot to carry my mobile phone charger. When I reached the hospital, it was showing 45% and I would have to spend the day, the night and the next morning, responding to messages, mails and calls. I panicked at first. Having found no way out, I decided to inform my family and keep my phone off in phases for 3 hours each during the daytime and check messages, mails and make calls in the next 20 minutes. I decided to turn off my phone from 10:00 pm to 7:00 am the next day. This effectively meant that I would be using my phone for 120 minutes in 30 hours. I managed to sail through till someone from my home brought a charging cord for me at 5:00 pm the next day. Remember, this was at a time when mobile phones are supposed to be super useful. Upon reflection, I found that I did not miss much at all. We might be amplifying, even glorifying or glamourizing, our busyness. You may try the same trick during the weekends and come to the same conclusion.

As you can imagine, there were few tough moments during the last few days. There were times wherein every gulp of water my father was taking seemed like a long incident, almost like a moment expanding itself into eternity. Aspiration would be the end of it all. This brings me to the third insight. We take these small things for granted with almost a sense of entitlement. And in effect, we become less grateful for what we have. It is only when these small things become inaccessible, do we realize the gifts we have. In the same vein, I observed another interesting episode. On the evening of December 25th, when the world was busy celebrating Christmas - and there is nothing wrong about it - the medical staff understandably remained hectically occupied. I noticed that someone related to one of the patients gifted a Christmas cake to the nursing station. I felt very thankful to that person, having not been able to show the same gesture myself and kept looking at the face of the nurse to derive some pleasure out of her presumable satisfaction. She was so busy that she just said "thanks" with a dry smile and went on with her activities. I would like to thank the medical fraternity that sacrifice some of these common festivities and go on with their profession. For them, many get new lease of life.

Last, but definitely not the least, we all go through tough times like I did in the last few days. But there are others who are going through tougher times than we are. My aunt got admitted to the same hospital with breathing problems later in the same day when my father was hospitalized. As I write this, she is still not completely stable, and doctors are doing their best for her. Being from a joint family, I was lucky to have been pampered by the love and affection of this aunt and other elders. My mother is also very close to this aunt. While a part of me is relieved having been able to get my father back home, another is still worried about her. I just hope that she gets over it in the next few days and joins my uncle, who is not really mobile, but waiting for her return nonetheless.