I guess this is the fourth stage of grief. I cannot stop thinking about death. Especially because it surrounds me – encapsulating my entire life. There is death everywhere. Some people are oblivious of it. They don’t want to acknowledge it, much less talk about it. But you open Twitter, or Facebook, or any social media and you’ll find mention of it. Friends have stories about how they are losing loved ones. Someone I know lost his dad yesterday and he couldn’t stop crying on a voice call.
I couldn’t stop crying either. Today, I woke up with a heavy head. A hardened jaw and a blocked ear. My legs have become swollen stumps so I cannot really walk around. These are side effects of maybe Wysolone or maybe Equilis. Who knows? Right about now, I cannot even take the time to be bothered about that.
My internal pain suddenly is overwhelming for me to notice anything on the outside. I don’t know why I have been cursed with this aspect to overthink and over feel. I am sitting on the bed, and I am thinking of how Pua would come in the room, with keys in her hand, and ask me how I am doing. We would sit together and talk. She and I got along. She understood what I was saying and I understood what she had to say. We would talk of family.
No one talks of family now. Everyone talks of tests and doctors and appointments and mess ups and medicines and chemists and mucormycosis. Strange fears, stranger lives. It’s like we are trapped in some alternate reality that never belonged to us. A black hole of the second wave of COVID-19, that seems to engulf us whole.
And no one thinks of you. Or you. I sit in this room, and miss talking. I want to talk of Munni Pua. I want to know how you would look at her house, that I can see right now and miss her. Like I miss you too. Incredibly. Yep, I have reached the fourth stage where I cannot abide by anyone who talks to me – I have no strength to answer back. I am not interested in fungal infections from steroids, I am not interested in getting better right about now. Just. Not. Interested.
Yes, I also know it is a stage. Apart from the attack of COVID and the tragedy of how death overtook the family, and the constant fear of who can die next, I miss you. I wonder what you would say, Goodie Pua, if you were here. I know what Munni Pua would say, I don’t want to suffer and die, if death comes, it should come quick. Thankfully, for her, it did. I am glad for that at least.
A Different Me 