He liked Archie comics, he said. We had found R sitting outside his ward, on an easy chair and my friend had asked him if she could get him something to read. We had been volunteering at the hospice, for about two months, then. He looked as though he was in his early thirties, gaunt, a skeleton almost. His eyes bulged out a little. He spoke with some difficulty, in a hoarse voice, words barely decipherable.
He reminded me of the pictures I had seen of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. I wanted to move away as quickly as possible. I asked a nurse what his disease was and she told me that it was Hodgkins Lymphoma.
I learnt R's story bit by bit, from the nurses, the doctors. On my next visit, I was told that he had not spoken for three days. His wife had taken everything he had, his flat, his money, his newborn daughter and sent him divorce papers to sign. In those days, I was a trainee counsellor and did art therapy with the patients along with my friend. I did not have the confidence that I could help the terminally ill and their relatives by talking with them.
On my rounds that day, I met R and asked if I could sit next to him. He readily agreed. I was cautious, on tenterhooks while speaking to him. He was too wounded and I was wary of what may hurt. He told me that he was from Mumbai, worked in a music recording company. I then asked him if he liked music and he said that he did.He loved old Hindi film music.We reminisced then about old films and old melodies.We hummed some of them together. And he smiled.
His smile was incandescent. A wide smile, showing an even set of teeth. A pure, innocent, child like smile. It lit up his face, transformed it, made it beautiful. It warmed me up within, in a way I cannot describe. I witnessed how the beauty of the soul reflects on a face. A beauty that can transcend any physical deformity. His smile became my motivation, my reward.
It became a pattern with us. I would sit with R and we would sing. He would choose songs for me to sing. And he would sometimes accompany me and sometimes not. I am not at all adept at singing, am quite tuneless, in fact.When he gave me a particularly difficult song to sing, I would tell him, "Its too difficult for me. I can't sing it. Only Lata Mangeshkar or Asha Bhonsle can." And he would smile. It became our private joke and never failed to bring that glorious smile on his face. I found that I was no longer bothered by his gauntness, his deformities, his hoarse voice. I learnt that when one forms a genuine connection with a person, the externalities become redundant.I could look past the disease and see him as the lovable person he was.
My friend got for him Archie, Tintin and Amar Chitra Katha comics from her son's collection. He would be happy to get them. He told us that Archie prefered Veronica to Betty because boys don't like girls who chase them! My friend got him material for painting. R would paint with zest and she put up his paintings on the wall next to his bed. He was loved by the nurses, who thronged around him and we teased him, saying he was like Krishna with the gopis. He enjoyed that.
I learnt that R was in denial of his disease, of his situation. He would tell me, his wife was in her native place with her parents and their child. He would show me her photo with pride, tell me about her. I expressed admiration for her but inwardly felt angry, resentful of a woman who had abandoned her husband in his time of dire need. He said he needed more shirts as he had to go back to Mumbai for his work. I informed the hospice staff and they provided him with a few shirts. He asked for them to be put in his bag for safety. He would sometimes ask me to contact his bank and enquire about his bank balance. I went along with him, agreeing to everything he said. I could sense that in his heart, he was aware of the reality of his failing, disease ravaged body, of his impending end. But the losses he had encountered in the span of a few months were too enormous.Loss of a home, a job, a spouse, his child, his health and finally his body. Losses too enormous to accept, to reconcile to. And hence the denial. It was his only defence against what life had thrown at him.
We formed a friendship. When I went to him, he would say, 'Its so good to see you!' And then we would chat and sing. He told me that he wrote a column for a Mumbai newspaper. He spoke beautiful English, chose his words with care. I learnt more of his story. His parents had divorced when he was a little boy. They had both remarried and his father had moved to the Gulf. His mother had distanced herself from him and he had grown up with his grandparents. He had a step brother who lived in this city and had brought him to the hospice. The step brother was fond of him, visited him sometimes and provided him with neccessities.I thanked God for small mercies. He had at least one family member who cared for him amidst all the abandonment.
Sometimes, I found him quiet, morose. On these occasions, I sat quietly with him and soon he would talk to me about some song, he wanted us to sing. I learnt about empathy. If I tune into someone's emotional state, after sometime the person tunes into mine. And also, that silence has its own communicative value and is more effective than words, at times.
I wondered how I could help R come to terms with his reality. I found he was not really interested in or knew anything about philosophy or spirituality. Because of his denial, words like 'death', 'soul' which might trigger distress, were ruled out. So, I spoke to him of cars and drivers.
I asked him that if a car became old and malfunctions, what does the driver do. He said that the driver leaves it and looks for another car. I then said his body was a car and he, R, was the driver. The real R sits inside the body and uses it. What would he do when the body becomes malfunctioning, troublesome?He replied that he would leave it and look for another, better one.
He was fascinated by the concept. On every subsequent visit, he wanted me to repeat it. He began joking about it. He would say,"This body is a Maruti800. I want the next one to be a Mercedes or a Ferrari!"One day, he asked me,"This is philosophy, isn't it?"And I replied that it was.
His condition deteriorated. His speech became progressively more slurred and he was disoriented.Yet, every time, I went to him, he said, '"Car," and I talked about it. One day, I found him very disoriented. He was restless, wanting to get up from his bed. I tried talking to him, explaining to him that he should stay put. He did not listen. I could not connect.On that day, I had felt disturbed, deeply upset.
When I went to meet him, the next week, I was fearful of what I might find. But to my surprise, I found him very lucid.The restlessness and disorientation had gone completely. Though his voice was weak, he spoke with clarity, in command of his thoughts and words. He spoke to me about his life. He wanted to write his autobiography. " How miserable my life has been," he said. Tears streamed down his face. He told me that when he had learnt of his disease, his mother had been the first person he had called and informed. But she just did not care. She never came to visit him. This caused him deep pain.
I saw that he had finally come out of his denial and had accepted the reality of his impending demise. So I spoke to him of the soul. About how it incarnates in human form, in order to gain human experience and to grow. About how he, the real R, remained unaffected by the disease. It was only for the body and the mind to experience. I gave him the analogy of how gold is purified by heating and explained that he has gone through this purification by the suffering he had endured. He was a pure soul and that is the reason why he was so loved by the people around him.He listened to what I said and seemed receptive. Before I left, he even joked a little with me.
A week later, he was still lucid. He was quieter and peaceful. He said to me, "I am moving on." I was a little surprised as I had never said those particular words to him. I felt happy for him. I told him that the place he was going to was beautiful beyond imagination and that he would find there the unconditional love, he had been denied here. I asked him whether he believed what I said. He said yes. I left him. He looked calm and at peace.
I learnt later, that he had passed on, early the next morning. Though I had known, from the moment when I had first seen him that he would die, it was still a shock, to both my friend and me.Though I talked of the soul and its eternal nature, in some corner of my heart, I had nurtured hope that a miracle would happen and he would live. At that time, my understanding and acceptance of death were on a mental level and not really on an intuitive or heart level.
Now, more than a year down the line, I find that he still lives in me. He was and always will be my friend. We walked together in his last days and learnt from each other, the realities of life and death.
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