Because even endings, like patients, have a way of resuscitating themselves

Representational pic/iStock

Endings are peculiar things. They arrive quietly after long journeys, like a house guest picking up his bag. Or they rush in without warning, like a sudden monsoon downpour that drenches you before you can run for shelter. As a surgeon, I have lived through most kinds. Endings that felt inevitable. Endings that felt unfair. And endings that surprised us by not being endings at all.

One of the earliest patients I thought I had lost was a middle-aged man who came to the emergency room after a road accident. By the time he reached us, he was unconscious, his breathing was shallow, and the monitors around him were making the kind of sounds that make doctors sprint instead of walk. His family had 
gathered in a corner of the waiting area, hands twisting prayer beads. When we opened his skull, his brain looked like it had fought a cyclone and lost. We worked through the night in a silence only operating rooms understand. When dawn arrived, he still had a pulse, but I had already prepared myself for the call I would have to make to his family.

Except, he refused to die. He clawed back with the stubbornness of someone who had unfinished business. A week later, he squeezed my hand. Two weeks later, he opened his eyes. Three months later, he walked into my clinic wearing a bright shirt and announced, “

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