“We lost him,” she said and suddenly, my heart stopped beating. The scream I let out drowned the rest of Mom’s words. My eyes were already blinded by tears. Too blurry to see, I clutched my phone tightly to my ear and made my way out of the hall and into the open. Stumbling and falling, but moving nonetheless, I had a hand to mouth because I couldn’t afford to scream. Not there. My tears flowed in torrents, and I felt that element of shock slip into me. My ears were beginning to ring painfully. I was losing it fast.
“Please, don’t say it,” I nearly knelt where I stood. “I’m begging you. Please, tell me it’s not true.”
“Be calm, my love.” Her voice rang sharp with pain, my already broken heart shattered a bit more. “Rejoice because he’s in a better place. A much better place than here.”
Rejoice.
Rejoice?
Would my heart ever know rejoicing after this? Would joy or its sisters ever find its way to my heart with a loss this acute? What did it mean to rejoice? Because I knew, deep down in my heart even as her words to live right and honour him by doing the things that made him happy which was to be good faded into oblivion in my ears, that he was gone.
He was gone.
One of my favourite people in the whole world was gone.
As, I made my way back to my little corner, heart awash with grief, I thought about our last moments. It was funny because barely a few days back, I’d gotten a call from Mom asking that I should speak to him for a bit cause he missed me. As I began and heard his words, garbled form his diabetes-induced speech impediment, a wave of love and sadness filled my heart. It was one of those times where I would make one more promise to myself. To work hard so I could have the resources to get him the best care possible.
It was one of those times hearing his words that were just a little more than mumbles due to all the health challenges he’d struggled with in the last few years, where I wished I had the power of teleportation, so I could appear beside him and sing him a hymn. He loved hymns immensely, and just being there by his side singing to him would have gladdened him beyond belief. But I could not teleport, and I could not sing him hymns. So, I listened to him instead.
“Te-te-ssaa,” he shouted, another display of his frustration at himself for not speaking as eloquently as he used to and not being to help it.
“Yes....” I answered softly, a lone tear sliding down my cheek. A regular occurrence each time I heard from him.
“Ah...Howw are yo-youuu?”
“I’m alright.” I felt him struggling then. Struggling and then a huge sigh leaving him because that was his speech limit. More tears slid down my cheeks. “I’m alright. School is fine. Everything is okay, and I’m eating well. I’m so happy you’re well. Please keep taking care of yourself.” I immediately asked that Mom take back the phone. After I promised that I would come visit, I hung up. There was only so much I could take.
Barely three days ago.
And now he was gone.
How would I forget his easy laugh? His smile that lit up like a million suns when he looked at me, and his belligerent look when I asked if he had laundry I could help him with. His constant advice to do well in school, and how proud of me he constantly told me he was. His sonorous voice that rang like a toll of the most melodious bells. Everything that was once him was now no more, and I was left with this pain that bit from the inside out. Pain so sharp, it stung and left simmering burns behind.
Oh, the hurt!
By this time, the crying had turned to weeping. In the safety of my corner, I could finally let it all flow. When the tears began to reduce, a promise, no doubt, to return at the slightest provocation, I picked up my pen and began to write.
“We lost him.”
Image is mine.
