Epiphany

Here's Epiphany, my contribution to On The Rocks 2010 (the magazine of BITS Pilani, Hyderabad.)

Oh, and I've lost count of the number of times I've recited (much like a child answering her teacher, I'm afraid) that epiphany is a moment of sudden realization.

Epiphany

It had been raining all day, and when it ceased at last, she all but fled to the terrace. Her father had been ill the past few months, and the doctors had finally given a name to the bouts of high fever, low blood counts, and the unbearable, throbbing ache in his right thigh: Cancer. She had always been her father’s daughter; there was no one she admired more, no one she loved better. But all she could feel was cool breeze swirling around her, teasing her skirts.

Visitors flooded her home: old friends of her father, and family that she had never heard of. These conversations were scripted, she thought. They all began with assurances that there was nothing wrong with her dad. Then they moved to the weather, and always ended up with reminiscences of the good old days. They spoke of the summers they’d spent in their native village, of the mangoes they’d stolen from a neighbour’s orchard, and of the afternoons they’d spent swimming in the lake. While leaving, it seemed obligatory for them to add a “don’t worry, concentrate on your studies”.

Soon enough, they went back to their own lives; hers settled into a comfortable, if surreal, routine of school, family time, and monthly visits to the hospital.

Winter was kind to her family. Her father spent less time at work, and more in the kitchen with her mother, teasing her as she lectured him on his diet. She found herself skipping homework to join her parents. It was always warm in the kitchen, and she delighted in all the extra time with him, chattering away about amusing incidents at school, or about something interesting she’d learned that day. She knew it was selfish of her, but she was in a way grateful, that it had brought her family closer. It did not matter that the cancer was detected in an advanced stage, that it had metastasized to the bones. It would turn out all right. It had to.

The days turned warmer. Summer brought mangoes, and heat that scorched leaves, leaving them dry and brittle, and hanging precariously from their branch. They glittered brown-gold as they caught the sun. Such was her vacation. Her dad was now working from home; she slept in, fussed over him at lunch, and lazed away afternoons with quiet conversations over gentle melodies on vividh bharti.

The rains came, washing the landscape with green: grasses and wild-flowers sprung up by the sidewalks. With renewed enthusiasm, she began a new year at school. Her father worked to complete research papers for an international conference. They were well received, and she was elated.

It was short-lived. One evening, her father informed her that the cancer was no longer responding to the drug. Each new drug, he added, would only serve to borrow months from Death. Fear gripped her. She’d had days when she wanted to scream out, “my dad has cancer!”, but she had never really considered what it meant. She had accepted it, that her dad did not have long to live, but had never confronted the possibility of death. She tried to imagine a home without him; it was impossible.

It was bitterly cold, that winter. The tumour increasingly began to assert its presence every night, pressing against his thigh bone, leaving him writhing in pain. As they waited for the opioids to alleviate the pain, she sat by him, feverishly pressing his legs and making determinedly cheerful conversations, all the while battling the helplessness and despair that threatened to overwhelm her.

Her friends urged her not to worry, to be optimistic. She smiled in agreement, but in truth, she did not know what to feel anymore. Even as she laughed with them, grief crushed her spirits inch-by-inch, rather like an advancing glacier, massive and unstoppable.

Today, her father had his first dose of an aggressive anti-cancer drug. She was distracted the entire day, agonizing over the harsh side effects chemotherapy can cause. She ran out to greet her parents when they returned.

Everything seemed to lead up to this. In her father’s warm embrace, she found that it did not matter that he looked so thin, so frail. She could not know what the future held in store. Even so, in a sudden clarity of thought she realized that he was with her that moment. And that was all that mattered.