Death is cruel. It keeps no calendar. Anytime, anywhere, a tragedy unfolds and a person is gone. Nothing hits us more than the death’s reflection in the eyes of the moribund: pale visage, weak breaths, and that soft opening of infirm eyes. It shakes. Kills those observing it closely.

What remains are memories. Even memories fade. Fade, like mist. Everything eventually forgotten. So goes the story of humans: they come, live, go, and disappear into nothingness.

This piece reflects one such person who a few days back shuffled off this mortal coil, someone very close to me: my father.

He had devoted all his life to feeding his family. Nothing beyond that seemed to matter to him. From morning until dusk, he could be seen stitching customized clothes of countless classic designs. But then a disease appeared, and he was no longer the person he used to be: an early riser, someone who carried accountability and responsibility within the household.

From putting a boiler in a copper receptacle to bringing milk and vegetables, he went from being constantly active to remaining stuck in bed, writhing in pain and discomfort. A person who had never let anyone see him go to the washroom now needed two people beside him, with an oxygen cylinder placed nearby.

COPD first and lung cancer later tore his strength apart.

It all started in 2024, when he was shifted to a nearby hospital, where he was diagnosed with COPD and treated accordingly. Short breaths and declining health kept taking him back to the hospital, even though during normal days, he would firmly refuse any suggestion of being taken there.

After some months of living with COPD, he developed pneumonia. Doctors then advised us to do a CT to rule out cancer.

The CT report showed a lesion. And we all began to worry.

We shifted him to another hospital where the bronchoscopic and biopsy reports revealed squamous cell lung carcinoma. We took him to an oncologist who suggested a PET scan. Here the core of us shook: he had advanced-stage lung cancer with metastasis.

Father had grown so weak that no invasive treatment or effective chemotherapy doses were recommended. He was beyond cure. Palliative care was all that remained in our hands.

Doctors, nevertheless, prescribed palliative chemotherapy. Six cycles were administered, and he grew too infirm to tolerate any further.

In Jammu, his condition worsened so much that he fell in the washroom, unconscious, cold sweat dripping from his head. We thought this would be the end of our beloved. But God had extended his life by a month or two.

After some time, the same condition recurred. This time, he couldn’t defeat the tentacles of the disease.

Doctors said that he would not live long and that it would be best to support him at home. However, our conscience wouldn’t allow us to take him back home. We remained there, hoping for some divine intervention or some treatment yet undiscovered or some hidden possibility.

He stayed unconscious most of the time, with slight movements of hands and a slurred voice. Speaking like a toddler, unintelligible. With uneasiness unbearable! I remember him in his altered state of mind asking me to bring him yellow thread, a measuring tape, and a Pheran. The material he worked with when he was healthy.

I remember him asking me to give him a lighter and a cigarette.

I remember him calling his daughter and wife in the middle of the night, his eyes still closed.

What he had done in his youth seemed to resurface unconsciously.

Often, with tears welling up in his eyes, he would tell his wife that he would die. And she would have to live without him. Each word had a dynamite of emotions and pain. And we remained silent, depressed, holding on to patience.

When he passed away, he opened one eye, perhaps to take one final look about and around. Even imagining that moment feels crushing to me. I wasn’t there at the exact moment, unfortunately.

I remember him taking me to school on a neighbor’s bicycle, attending school meetings whenever I got into mischief, and hugging me when I passed exams.

And I now remember how much I mattered to him while he suffered: calling me again and again.

Abdul Rehman Bhat, my father, wasn’t a man of empty talk. He was the epitome of selflessness. He never envied people, even if they took away what he genuinely deserved. His entire world revolved around earning for his family.

And it pains me deeply to imagine that he left this world without exploring much of it.

Now that he is no longer with us, it’s even more painful to see folks embracing normalcy, as it were, only a day later, including me. But perhaps this is how this world works: death is followed by cries and then occasional conversations about the departed.

Whatever it is, we humans are complex!

© Greater Kashmir