From the vortex of grief: Wait without hope*

 In a recent email to a friend, I wrote that I now have a better handle on things. And I wasn't lying. This arduous journey through my dad's hospitalization and illness started almost a month ago, and by now I have learned how to live with the grief, the sorrow and the exhaustion. I have learned to manage my academic deadlines along with the countless responsibilities and logistics that come with the hospital, my house and my parents' house. So today, I had a neat list full of things to accomplish, including an assignment that was due today. I was feeling rather cheerful, because my Dad had been moved from the ICU to the ward, and my mother and I were dreaming of the day he would be discharged. One week. No, maybe two weeks. By the end of the year, for sure. This was how our conversations went. As I wrote in a previous post, I've felt annoyed when people asked me to hope or to not worry. I have always been a 'what's the worst that could happen?' person, and I did not want to hope. But unconsciously, reflexively, I was hoping all along that my Dad would recover, and be discharged soon.

So today, I had a tab open to write a blog post on all the things that I was grateful for. I do this every year on my birthday, and I wanted to do it this year too despite everything that had happened. And then, I called my Mom, to hear what the doctors had said. She told me: They're considering moving him back to the ICU. He hasn't been breathing well since last night, and the doctors are concerned. To say I was unprepared for this was an understatement. My sanity was hanging by a single thread of hope, and that thread had just been severed. My mom said to me in anguished disbelief: But he was alright yesterday. I told the neurologist he's getting better, but he says he's not. If they take him back to the ICU, we won't be able to see him for more than a few minutes every day.

I didn't know what to say to this because I felt exactly the way she did. I had visited him yesterday evening, and I had also felt that he was making progress. I tried to console her, in vain. No words could be said to make this better. After she put down the phone, I felt angry. We had waited an entire month. Patiently. Hopefully. He had been moved from the ICU to the stepdown ICU and then to the ward. The doctor had said something positive just a few days ago. How was this fair? I wasn't asking for a miracle from life--I wasn't asking that my dad starts walking or running. I was just asking for his life. Was that too much?

I stared at that tab where I had planned to write my entry of gratitude. I stared at it for a whole ten minutes, and then closed it wordlessly. I had no room to feel hope of gratitude. And I didn't want to, because it could get shattered like this again. I wanted to feel numb. Then, I remembered these lines from Eliot's poem.

Wait Without Hope

T.S. Eliot

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.

The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,

The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy

Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony

Of death and birth.

I had read this poem in another lifetime, before my tryst with grief and darkness. I'll admit, it did not resonate with me then. But today, it seemed that Eliot was speaking to me, and he was saying just what I needed in this moment. Wait without hope, he says. It almost seems cruel to say this to someone. What else is there but hope? I had hoped, and built castles on that hope. On my good days, I had hoped that my Dad would recover. On my worst days, I had hoped for a swift resolution, in whatever direction that was--I'll admit this honestly and without shame. I had loved, and experienced the intense pain that was the other side of that love. Every time my dad asked for water and couldn't be given some, I wept. Every time I tried to eat, I choked on my own tears at the realization that he had not eaten in weeks. I had thought and overthought to the point of torment. What if my Dad gets covid? What if my he develops further complications? What if he is declared ineligible for physiotherapy? What if my Mom who has been handling most of this alone falls ill too? What if I lose both parents before I'm 30? 

Hope, love and thought are distractions. They keep us in denial, and prevent us from looking at the harsh truths of life and the uncertainty that is present in every moment. But the more we distract ourselves, the more we struggle at the ups and downs, unable to find equanimity. Today, I have decided to really try and be still. To not hope or wish for something, but to simply accept what comes my way. It seems almost impossible right now, but I will try. And on that note, I leave you to your day.

*Title credits: T S Eliot