Dear Hope,
I know we haven't been the best of friends lately but, I have a question;
How do I face the faceless days, if I should lose you now?
She remembered when they broke the news. Four people in the living room. Her uncle sitting in the wooden armchair, his wife standing over him, her other aunt the bearer of the bad news and she, feeling small and inferior. She remembered being happy earlier in the day, reminding herself that her favourite uncle would stop by today after his visit to the clinic. Her anticipation, the long wait and her dopey smile.
"Doctor said it's cancer. Stage four."
She remembers vaguely getting up from the sofa and moving to the dining room. Her ears were ringing. Stunned, paralyzed with denial. She remembers holding onto the table, but it wasn't enough to stop her from shaking. No, she screamed silently. No! Not you! Never you!
She tried, over and over again to justify what she'd learned that solemn afternoon. Maybe the doctor had got it wrong. Maybe she had his results mixed up with some other patient's. Maybe he'll get better with chemo. Maybe if he took meds, he'd be okay. Maybe if he got a second opinion, it'll be different. Maybe this, maybe that, maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybes couldn't stop the inevitable.
How did they miss it? All the signs, all the hints. He hadn't been his usual bubbly self of late, opting to sleep more than spend time like they used to. "I knew my time was next when I saw Rose at the hospital," he said. And I remember the look on your face when you were at her bedside, she whispered inwardly. How could she have forgotten? Idiot.
A few days later he was submitted into the hospital. She visited him everyday, without fail. It was a sense of duty that she felt towards him. A moral calling, an obligation. It wasn't forced, nor faked. She did it willingly, out of love. He was the only man in her life, the father she never had.
Day by day she went to the hospital. Everyday was the same. Always on time. At the start of the visiting hour, and the last out of the ward at the end of it. She'd walk in the room, greet him, a brave smile plastered on her face. Then she'd leave the room, and make her way to the small verandah outside her uncle's placement, overlooking the hospital's car park, pretending to read the storybook she'd brought along, trying hard not to breakdown. She would sit there, unable to move, too afraid to look into the window and see the truth that was staring at her right in the face. The shame she felt for being in denial was undescribable. She felt disgusted with herself, thinking everything would sort itself out if she just ignored it.
Chemotheraphy was not advisable because the outcome would be 50/50. Bummer. Doctors weren't sure if he would make it. They said it might even aggrevate the whole thing. They said the cancer had spread to his pancreas and that he would feel pain. Physical pain. Double bummer. Morphine was given to combat the suffering he felt. And right before her eyes he started to slowly degenerate. From the hearty and hale man he one was, now only a shadow of himself, all skin and bones. The drugs made him have delusions. On more than one occasion that she paid him a visit, he was fast asleep because the doctors had to sedate him. Her heart broke a little more everytime she saw him. The person who was full of jokes, the life of the party, now reduced to a mere shell. All the wires and machines surrounding him, it saddened her deeply. She cried every chance she got, whenever no one was looking.
One evening before going home, she finally plucked up the courage to speak to him. She told him that he had to be strong, he had to make it through because this year, like all the other years past, they were going to go to Fraser's Hill again. And who was going to take them to the bungalow on the hill if it was not for him? It wouldn't be the same without him. Get well soon, promise me. He nods in return, but his eyes were unfocused because of the drugs. She wasn't even sure if he'd heard or even understood her. Her heart broke a little more. But still she prayed silently that he'd make it, that he'd still be around at the end of the year,when she got the results of her public examination. He would be so proud of her, just like a father would.
Time passed and they transferred him to another hospital in the city. They put him temporarily in the emergency area. Many people were placed there too. The room was big and cold. Very impersonal, white and not to her liking. Mechanically, she would do the same things she did before. Greet and go. His wife said he had no appetite whatsoever. The food was never finished. She choked hearing that her uncle was not eating. She left before the tears could hit the floor, seeking refuge between the pages of her storybook. As she was reading in the lobby, her aunt came up to her and said that he wanted to meet her. Her heart stops beating for a few moments as she tries desperately to compose herself. In her mind she keeps repeating: don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.
As she reaches his bed, he turns to look at her.
"Feed me, please," comes his feeble voice. She bites her lip hard to stop from making a sound. She nods her head and with trembling hands, picks up the plate. After a few spoons of the dismal-looking porridge, he shakes his head. "Thank you," he mutters. No, thank you, says her heart as she turns away to stifle her sobs.
Once back home, her brother drops by to see how his uncle is doing. Their uncle is confined to the bed and asks to be shaved. His beard was becoming an annoyance and he didn't want it shaved with a razor because it would cause a nasty itch. So his nephew was to just trim it with scissors. Her brother smiles and does as he is asked. How sweet, she smiled to herself, leaning against the bedroom door.
Eventually, they had to admit him again into the hospital. This time, his condition became visibly worse. His health detoriated to the point of praying that God take him instead of letting him suffer, if that was for the best. At first she felt scandalised and baffled at what her family had suggested, but after seeing her uncle in such discomfort, she succumbed.
At long last the dreaded day came. The doctor advised that all his family members were to be called. With a heavy heart, she trudged into the room. He was on oxygen support. She tried her level best to be strong and calm. His daughter was holding her father's hand, stroking his forehead, comforting him. She looked so brave, standing beside her father.
After a while, his breathing became erratic and he started trying to pull off his oxygen mask with his weak fingers. He kept begging his sister-in-law to take it off and he kept saying he felt uncomfortable with the damned thing. She tried in vain to convince him to put it back on. In the midst of the commotion, the doctor strides in, all lanky and authorative.
"Not much longer," he says coldly, emotionless. Son of a bitch! Her insides were burning. How could he just walk in and say that like it was the most normal thing to say to a grieving family? Pass the salt. Heartless bloody bastard. If murder wasn't a crime, she would have struck him down right then and there.
"Take it off. Please," he was pleading. She snapped out of her reverie. The scene unfolding before her was heart-wrenching. He was relentlessly trying to get the mask off his face. Finally, his sister-in-law gave up.
"Read the shahadah," his sisters said and began teaching him how to do it. Through his gasps, he managed to repeat the shahadah quite a number of times. Slowly, his breathing started to level out and the machines showed no vitals. The doctors come in and announced the time of death. In the corner, her tears flowed freely and her body is racked by sobs.
Her life will never be the same again. He won't be there when her exam results come out, he won't be there when they marvel at the mist of Fraser's, he won't be there, sitting in the passenger's seat to follow her around when she gets her driver's license, he won't be there to send her off on her first day of college, he won't be there to take photographs on her wedding day.
"Is that his daughter?" a man in the crowd asks.
She runs out of the room in a blur of tears and leans against the wall. She felt numb. Useless. Directionless. Lost.
Footsteps were heard coming in her direction. She looks up to see her cousin making her way towards her. She opens her arms wide. They embrace. Her cousin starts crying in her arms. She feels the loss all over again, the pain washing over her afresh. "I'm here," she said. And you're my responsibility now.
I miss you. You are always in my heart and in my memory. You're the Abah I never had. I loved you and always will. She's doing fine, by the way. Your heart would just burst with pride if you saw how far she's come and how much she's accomplished. She loves you, we all do. Al-fatihah.
