The liberation of feeling a cold wet tear falling down your face. It cleanses you allowing for all your energy to be concentrated and released.

Do you want to read a soppy story of how much I miss my grandmother?

Don’t worry, a soppy, feel sorry for me story isn’t the aim of this article; I’m writing to expose a dramatic tale of a medical journey combined with the philosophical queries regarding one’s fate and destiny.

…

Have you ever fought and fought a losing battle in the hopes that someone is on the other side dragging you up and out?

Me too.

My Story

I was 18 years old. I had applied to all the universities I wanted to go to. I was ready to smash them and achieve my chosen one. It was a casual Wednesday afternoon on the 25th January where I had two frees after lunch – I was on my way home.

I got a non-emergent call from my parents telling me they were packing to visit my grandmother in the hospital because she fell ill on holiday. Their explanation was spun; so in my mind they were there to support my grandfather in the hospital rather than to save my grandmother. They spoke in their parental language and eased my mind and body.

My sister and brother got home from school, quite rightly upset that my parents had, without much explanation, fled half way across the world to the Philippines.

We set about the rest of our week hoping that everything would be fine by the end of the week and life would carry on as usual.

2/3 days later we were told that my grandmother would not survive in the remote town of Boracay where her and my grandfather were staying. She had to be physically forced onto a plane and dragged to Manila where the best facilities were. My grandmother was inspirational, idolised and understood to be a REAL independent woman who refused to allow others to tell her what to do. However, my father was so adamant on keeping her alive (rightly so); they were forced to strap her down in the plane and place a tube down her throat – blocking her voice box. Thus, from then, my siblings, my mother, father, grandfather and I couldn’t communicate verbally with her. All this happened on my dads 48th birthday.

From here many things were a blur and information trickled back to my siblings and I every so often. My dad’s words were settling, allowing for a positive energy to be released into the house, whereas on the other side of the planet there was an unspoken fear of my 69 year old grandmothers death.

Remain positive they said. Have faith they said. Medicine is powerful they said.

…

My sister’s 15th birthday party in February was an interesting and obscure moment for all of us. This is one of my more vivid moments. My mother was away in Manila attempting to save my half-dead grandmother and “get her off that bed” with my grandfather (who are in fact her in laws). My father was home and threw a house party with us. My body and my mind were in different states… with my father being back I was complete, with my mother gone I felt unsure, anxious, uneasy. Knowing my mother was there… all I could do, and my only coping mechanism was to block out my emotion.

It was the end of the house party and I was on my Spotify playlist, playing every song my father would feel through his body. I liked seeing him at his best and my only way to relieve some of his pain for 30 minutes was to sing and dance to our favourite songs. These included Child’s Play, Summertime Sadness (the remix) and of course Work. The energy was exposed, the state we were in allowed our bodies to feel the music and my sister, my father and I were bonding over the songs that directed us to a state of pure happiness.

During this time frame I jumped up off the table I was obviously standing on and came to dance with my father. I could feel his positive energy falling and I came to embrace him… as I did so I felt his aura collapse onto my body and in that moment in time I was the only thing holding him up. Bear in mind, what some parents do for their children means what I did for those 5 minutes, my mother and father had done this my whole 18 years of existence.

Thus, at this moment in time I embraced my father and we both felt tears streaming down our cheeks which turned into sobbing in each other’s arms as some sort of prayer. Hearing my father sob fuelled a hidden anger in my soul that was later exposed after my grandmother’s death. Feeling your father cry in your arms is a strange and ultimately painful experience.

This prayer was to whatever may exist out there; praying that this stage in our lives would just END… which later it did. This moment, this sincere moment, this silencing moment, this sacred moment… this moment changed my soul forever. I am a different person because of this moment.

Carrying another person’s weight was something I’ve never had to do, this is what our parents do. I felt my fathers whole hearted soul rest upon mine just for a moment of relief.

I will never forget that moment.

So, a few weeks after the party, it was closing to the time of my grandmother’s passing which was Saturday 11th March. My mother was back, however my father was in Manila again. On the Wednesday before this, I had spoken to my father over the phone who began with his ‘frontstage’ speech which not only encouraged me, but he himself that his mother will be “off that bed!”

Unfortunately, my mother and father were always very vague when explaining what my grandmother was going through; however, in this particular moment my father mentioned my grandmother had a disease called “ARDS”. As I was speaking to my father, he insisted that this was the last hurdle we had to go through to “get her off that bed!” In this moment I was on google, searching the acronym “A R D S” which is technically wet lungs.

Our mission was to drain her lungs of all the water that was drowning them. Bear in mind, my grandmother was on life support for all her major organs such as the heart and kidneys too. Thus, we were challenged with battling to save every organ in her body as well as recover her soaking wet lungs simultaneously. My grandmother became an object of medical history which required major risk and persistence beyond any other. This tale was beyond all understanding and needed a certain cosmic power to drag us all up and out.

This became the first time that I had come to the realisation that this tale filled with money, passion and sheer graft would most likely turn into a tragedy.

I was sat outside my library in school and I was crouching on the floor… after I hung up the phone I sobbed… I wanted to SCREAM. I wanted this stage of uncertainty to fall either way at this point. Stop sugar coating. Stop the challenge. Finish the race… even if we finished last.

It came to Thursday and Thursday is a very spiritual day for us as a family. Thursday is Sai Baba day. Sai guides us, fills us with hope and faith to keep going.

I was alone in our mini Mandir (temple) at home. The diwa (light) was on in front of the image of Sai. I stared right into Sai’s eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks (once again), my body rocking with my hand clasped, held so tight you could see my veins and the redness from the squeeze. I prayed that this state in our lives would just END. I prayed that my grandmother would receive her wish… survive or die.

I stopped, I stared, I felt relief.

At 7am on Saturday 11th March, my grandmother had died. Her lungs had started bleeding, thus my father and mother painfully chose to remove all trace of medicine and drain it from her body slowly which was supporting her mere bodily experience. She took seven hours to die and my grandfather and father sat there singing prayers waiting for her peaceful death.

From this day, my faith faded. Philosophical questions stemmed from then on and my house became filled with a new level of uncertainty. Why? What? How? Is it human interference with Mother Nature that prolonged my grandmothers “meant to be” death? Was my grandmother supposed to die on my dads 48th birthday? Was her journey already over before it began?

All I know is…

xx A journey and a half but you ended up dancing with the stars xx

I hope… I pray.