A first for everthing.

I remember like it was yesterday…..yet in ways it seems like it happened decades ago. The memory is so raw and old at the same time that it takes me a while to remember and think back to when it actually happened. There were no melodramatic scenes, like I had imagined in my head…only my heart racing (just like everyone else I’m sure), trying to absorb the shock. Well…no dramatics until the funeral, but that was the next day and honestly, I found it all disgusting! The weeping, the wailing, the flailing of arms…all so pointless!
It was a pleasant enough night, a few nights before my 1st PUC final examinations, and I was sitting on this very sofa that I sit on now as I write this, watching TV. I can’t remember what I was watching but I know that I never finished…must have been a football match. When the phone rang, I answered with a little excess annoyance thinking ‘Why would anyone call at such an hour!’. But the moment the caller introduced herself I knew….but I thought it was grandmother, after all she was old.
The caller was my grandmother’s (Dad’s mother) landlord, saying she wanted to talk to my mum. Call me morbid, but death is and has been the first thing I think about when such a mysterious call comes; maybe it’s a way to brace myself for the coming bad news…expect the worst so nothing else will seem so bad! I felt myself regretting already, for all the things that I had not gotten a chance to say to my Granny. I wished for another chance….When my mother placed the phone down I nonchalantly asked her, feigning innocence just in case she was highly emotional (scariest thing in life- an overly emotional person!), what was happening. She gave me a weird look and said something that didn’t really register in my mind at first. Not because I was devastated or anything but it was just surprising! She said that my father had fallen unconscious in the garage of his apartment building. My heart skipped a beat but I told myself that it was nothing because he was one person I had never imagined dying so far! The logical part of me kept saying ‘Oh, he’s such a healthy person, this must be one of those black out things, so why are you being such a spaz?!’. My illogical side was saying ‘No he can’t die first…it should be Ajji (granny) or Mum who should go first because they are older and less healthy!!!’. So I went back to watching TV, almost forgetting about this (turns out I’m really good at repressing memories!).
About 15 to 20 minutes later the next phone call came, it was my Aunt this time, and I didn’t even bother lifting my head. My mum gasped for breath and told us that he had passed away….I remember two tear drops rolling down my cheeks, before I was told to calm down and wait for more information. I sat there, on the sofa, unable to digest anything that was happening or figure out WHY ME!
I cried a LOT that night, unable to grasp a simple enough concept, which was even more frustrating. My mind kept coming back to one single question that I ask myself even today- did he think of me before he died? Was I, his daughter, his last thought, if not, did he even think of me that day? A plaguing question, that was to bring many more tears into my eyes, because I doubted it heavily.
I never wanted to see “it”…the body…from the very beginning I had made it clear that I would not attend the funeral. My logic was (and still is) that he’s dead, meaning there is no life in the body, so why should I go and say ‘Goodbye’ or pray to it!!! It didn’t make any sense! Yet somehow I found myself standing at the door of my dad’s house, shocked to see all the sobbing, weeping people (which I found scary). My grandmother started pulling on my hand, crying, asking me to come and say my goodbyes. But I couldn’t….my mind would not let me and I’m grateful….seeing my dad anything but alive would have scarred me and I knew it. My granny eventually forgave me, but it took a few months and some nasty comments on her part.
To date I don’t regret the decision I made that day…..a distant memory...it changed my life.

Ananya!