Once upon a time, life used to be
simpler, and going about at a cordial pace. Incidents, planned or impromptu,
were always accountable to certain legit circumstances. Everything seemed to have a reason; for
good or for bad, it used to be acceptable. For all those things that were
acceptable in the past, there used to be someone mature enough, who was
accountable to. There were people you looked up to for answers to such
questions which life posed ominously. And naively, with all the innocence that
could exist, you used to accept those answers with assuring belief. Those
people were your philosophers. Their viewpoints shaped your ideology. And they
could never disappoint you in their ways. For me, it was my parents; and they
still are, but certain things have changed now.
In the years that fly by (seems
like a fortnight to me!), and with life seemingly getting out of your hands,
with nobody accountable to the series of events happening in your life, when your
begetters are themselves riveted by the circumstances, we are expected to
switch roles with them. They need the light that they had been guiding us with
all these years. We now become their pillars that they had raised us to be. But
what I doubt is, do we really become that capable when the time comes?
To see your own support system
crashing, the kind of helplessness one faces cannot be expressed (atleast I
cannot!). Someone whom you had always relied upon, suddenly not being there in
that place, is the hardest blow to one’s existence. You can never be prepared for
it, unless it becomes this slow gradual process where you are bound to go through
all the stages of grief: i.e. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
By the time you reach the final two stages, you are most likely to be prepared to
switch roles. To smile when a situation demands so, to be tough and make
decisions without always choosing the happy one, to stop questioning the
occurrence of events, and perhaps to be someone else’s support system.
I feel the need to clarify this
here that I have been writing this post because I see so many cancer patients
everyday, and talking to them I see those patients and their families bring out
all of their anguishes and apprehensions towards life. I can never know what it
feels like to be in their individual situation, but I certainly can empathize
with them, since I have my own share of personal setbacks. I just had an
elderly patient today with stage IV pancreatic cancer, diagnosed after an
entirely healthy life of no addictions, still in the phase of anger, and
questioning me as to why did such a horrendous disease take over him despite of
him being such a decent man all his life. I obviously stood there speechless
listening to him, realizing it all perfectly that there is no answer to any of
his queries. And finally he told me to fear that one supreme power that lies
above us all, because nobody perhaps can understand his ways. And then there are so many other
patients who have been in remission for quite a while, distraught with a
relapse of their disease. All in this perpetual cycle of hospitals and
therapies, being hopeful on the outside, and daunted on the inside. The
children taking care of their elderly parents, and the young parents bringing
in their sick toddlers. Each of them being a support system for the other. And
we merely as pawns, finding out that it is all a part of the inevitable circle of
life. It might be every individual’s separate story, but it is certainly every
house’s. For some it happens too early, and for some quite late, but the times
change, and the roles do too. And there is nothing you can do about it, except
for reaching the 5th stage, which is of Acceptance. And there is no
way to fast forward to it. It is going to take, what would seem like, all the
time in the world.
But it shall pass too; the scars may
remain, but I am hoping for times to change again..
