The Living Dead

Some calendar dates unfortunately earn the reputation of not being good days. Has that ever happened to you?

1 October is a date that never fails to leave me uncomfortable. This day, many years ago, gave me my first encounter with Death. Over the years, the date has inspired a little more strength and a little more weakness within me, all at the same time.

As today marks 14 years since that dreadful night, I take a moment and think of how the concept of living with the dead changed for me over the years. The years pile on, and when you think back, it seems crazy at how many years ago you lost someone you loved. As you grew up, the people you grew up with, began to fade. Began to leave. And there’s nothing you have been able to do about it.

Have you ever felt though, that there are some people whose chapters closed just as silently as they took your leave…and yet there are others, who you can never accept have gone away forever?

I was sorting through some childhood stuff a few weeks ago, when I came across a thin strip of blackened paper. I didn’t remember saving it so carefully and yet it was in my “box of treasures”, so I couldn’t help opening it up with an eagerness quite rare. Neat handwriting conveyed a simple message : “To celebrate your achievement – a little gift to buy you the sweets you’d enjoy!” Nothing “save” – worthy here, right? I thought so too, to myself….until I allowed my eyes to wander to the name that signed off this message. A handwriting not very familiar to me, but the mention of a name that punched me hard in my gut.

For the next few minutes, I was transported to a time and age far removed from now. I heard the door bell ring, my grandfather call out to me to open the door, my thudding footsteps down the stairs, an eager peek through the peephole and a smile that spread slowly over my face. For there he was, that name, that person. Standing there, dressed simply with a side bag (a shabnam to be precise), balanced on his shoulder, his big bold spectacles marking his lined face, a half-moon head of white hair and his lips stretched into a wide smile.

What jolted me back to reality, was the sheer fact that I hadn’t forgotten how they looked or how they sounded. The two people I had lost not too far apart from each other, but a good number of years ago from today. And as that chaos cleared, a confusing thought came to my mind : “Why hadn’t we met in all these years?”

So many people that smile back at me through the photo albums today, who bring the same thought to my mind. So many loved ones who walked away silently, never to return, who never gave me a chance to say a proper Goodbye.

Each time I change the bedsheets, I see my grandfather opposite me, peering at me through his dark – rimmed glasses, not letting me miss out on smoothening a single crease. Each time I go over to an uncle’s house, I think of all the exciting things I want to share with his father – only to realise, upon ringing the door bell – that he passed away more than a year ago. There’s not a single time when I have mentioned going over to a certain grand – aunt’s house, when in reality, she ceased to physically exist there for more than three years ago. And till date, I don’t think I have actually accepted the fact that the person who once ‘celebrated my achievements with sweets’ just isn’t ever coming back to visit!

I push these thoughts to the background as often as I can, but some nights they cannot help but rear their heads – as I grow older, will I become richer in terms of having known and being loved by these people or poorer for having lost them? Would I really begin to appreciate their presence in my life only after their absence truly sunk in? Would I make sure I made that last phone call or went over for that last visit in time, the next time?

I don’t think I will. In fact, I am sure I won’t. Because you never think of Death as a reality. It happens in other people’s lives, until it actually comes knocking home. It is universal, and yet it is unique in the grief it leaves in its wake. But at the end of the day, while the date gets branded as inauspicious, I also believe what matters in the long run, is what you do with the memories.

Do you reminisce and continue to keep the dead living in your talks and thoughts? Or do you bury them completely, for fear of letting out emotions suppressed the moment you had to bid Goodbye?

Over the years, as I lost many more loved ones, this is what I have realised – from each of these people, I learnt a lot. Some taught me to read, some wanted to hear me talk, some made me listen. Some sneaked me books, some ensured I never missed a Maggi Thursday. Some smiled at me over their glasses, some lent me their walking sticks to play ball with. And above all, they all taught me to never stop loving despite the fear of losing them one day.

Tonight, while the lump in my throat is still as tight as ever, I can also smile at all the memories clouding my mind as each word finds its place in this random outburst. In my mind, the words are jumbled, they just won’t be captured into perfect sentence constructions, but the images and sounds are clearer than ever.

And so maybe, after all these years, I might just begin to come to terms with this date. For although 1st October won’t cease to remind me of the void it introduced me to, it might also slowly start filling it up with happy memories of those that once lived!