A Letter to My Grandmother - That I Hope She Never Reads

My maternal grandmother was hospitalized last month.

It was late into the night when she started struggling to breathe. Her breaths became irregular, strained even. If it weren’t for my cousin who immediately recognized the symptoms and informed my aunt, I don’t know (or even want to think about) what would’ve happened.

She was rushed into the ICU, and put on a ventilator. My mother made her way to be at her side at 3 a.m., all while I was oblivious sleeping in my room.

I get why she didn’t tell me: the next morning was my mathematics board exam. I needed my sleep. Telling me, or rather worrying me with a developing story such as this, wouldn’t have done anyone any good.

Dad told me the next day. “Don’t worry,” he said firmly, as my mind began racing. “You can’t do anything about it right now. From what I’ve heard, aaji’s better. She’d want you to focus on your exam.”

And so I did. The next afternoon, Mom came back home. I was told Aaji was fine, but I couldn’t help noticing Mom’s face was a few shades whiter than usual. Before I could ask, she replied. “We can go see her tomorrow. Vana Maushi’s coming tonight so it’ll all be extremely difficult to manage.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Vana maushi’s coming?”

The prospect of my aunt coming from California wasn’t usually a source of discomfort. In fact, as a kid, whenever she’d come to visit, my cousins and I would wait eagerly to see the presents she’d inevitably bring for us. But she was travelling from San Jose. She wouldn’t have dropped everything and flown halfway around the world for nothing. This was serious.

Mom seemed to read my mind. “Arey, I told her she didn’t have to. She was planning to come this year anyways, and figured she should be here to help with the hospital rounds.”

I wasn’t convinced.

Nevertheless, I played along and went to Dadar to see Aaji the next day. As I got out of the car, I looked at the hospital building with a certain unease. I’ve been extremely lucky not to have been inside a hospital more than once or twice. But the environment was dull. Like the shadow of something disconsolate was looming over the building.

I wore my mask and made my way upstairs, seeing nurses and doctors going about. They looked like they hadn’t slept in days. The loved ones of patients had crammed the bleak visiting room. The prayers those walls must have heard would put those of churches and temples to shame.

The ICU looked different from what I'd seen on TV. Twenty beds were spread across three rows, each hiding its occupant by a thin white curtain. My grandmother was at the far end of the ICU. As I approached her bedside, I was taken aback by what I saw.

She looked frailer than I’d ever seen her. Her long white hair was untidy. There were IVs through each of her thin arms. For the first time, she looked her age. She looked eighty-five.

Aaji caught my eye and gave me a weak but brave smile. I smiled back, but I didn’t know how much of my shock was hidden by my mask. She told me on the first day in the hospital she didn’t have the energy to speak or communicate. It took the nurses 20 minutes to realize she was asking for her phone. She wanted to know the cricket score, you see.

Priorities!

Aaji told me she had been pestering the doctors to move her to a room. She too hated the atmosphere in the ICU. The previous night, she had seen the patient across the aisle die. Traumatic was an understatement.

I looked at the other beds out of the corner of my eye. A woman was struggling to get up from her bed. The man next to her was covered in stitches, his face thoroughly disfigured. Someone else was quietly sobbing.

I didn’t blame Aaji for wanting to leave. But none of these were her reasons to leave. There was an all-important India-Pakistan match the next day.

I thought a lot about my short visit. I don't like ICUs. You shouldn't have to see other sick people when you're struggling yourself.

Death, I was told later by my aunt, was playing on aaji’s mind for a while. The previous week, she’d lost both her best friend and her sister-in-law. The night she saw the man die in the ICU, she dreamed of all her family members who’d passed on. They were calling out to her, almost as if everyone else had gone away and she was left alone here on earth.

A month later, Aaji’s better now. She can walk and eat and talk. But, in my mind, a death has occurred. My idea of her.

Aaji’s been a constant in my life. Both my aajis have been. By the time I could understand what was going on, my maternal grandfather had lost his ability to do so thanks to Alzheimer’s. I never knew my paternal grandfather.

Aaji’s age is advanced. I knew that. But this was a woman who could devour an entire bottle of Coca-Cola on her own. Her favourite food is pizza. Aaji has never been like any other octogenarian I know. It’s almost like being hospitalized, or being sick, was so out of character for her.

At that moment in the ICU, I realized aaji’s mortality for the first time. I buried that childish notion of her continuing to live forever and ever, right then and there.

How many constants that I depend on aren’t really constants?

What are the things I knew for sure as a child will I have to unlearn?

I’ve been waiting for emotional maturity to kick in, almost as if it’ll show up the second I blow out my 18th birthday candles. But I think I need to discover that too.

This episode with Aaji told me I wasn’t ready to let her go. I don’t think I ever will be. And I don’t think the notion of death ever feels easier as you inch towards it. Aaji was afraid. I could tell. And that’s why I never want her to know about this article. Because refusing to believe is one thing. Hearing it from someone else is a whole ‘nother challenge.

Maturity requires you to make peace with uncomfortable truths. Things will pass. People will come. People will go. Maturity is taking these facts in your stride. Aaji knows she will have to go someday. But I don’t want to remind her of it.

Instead of finding that maturity or that understanding externally, I’d have to sculpt it out of the rock of constants I’ve built up in my head.