Deivanai’s story starts from her death announcement. The first death we faced as a family.
On a fateful night in November, my appatha slipped in the bathroom. It was a stinging, sharp pain in her lower back. She came and rested thinking bearing it a little more would make it disappear. The next day was my grandparents 80th celebration. That more when we went to check on her, her pain had only increased. We did not rush her to hospital. She did not insist also. The function was important. She met people in her bedroom and came out only for the thirupootuthal. The 80th photo shows my smiling grandfather and weary appatha just holding all of herself together. Just like how she did it all her life. That evening, she couldn’t hold it anymore. She was rushed to the hospital. There was a compression in her spinal cord and she laid in her bed for the next 3/4 years. She was paralysed and could not do anything on her own.
How does one aspire to live when life is so willful?
Later, her lungs started failing. Dropping from 80 to 60. 60 to 40. Slowly, as she left us. She gave all of us a lot of time to grapple with the reality. Then, I was doing my Bachelor’s in Chennai. I escaped my caregiver responsibilities and was enjoying my youth. While my mother, father, and my sister lived with her ups and downs.
One evening, I received a call from home asking me to come home immediately. I was asked to coordinate with my cousin. When I called him, I knew the urgency. He had already booked bus tickets and wanted me to come to Perungulathur by 8 to board the bus. I hurried back to the hostel, packed a few things and rushed to catch the local train. One of the slowest travels in life as I raced against time. We boarded the bus, watched kadai kutty singam and reached Madurai by 2am mid night. My father was there to pick us up. As we reached home, we got to know all my cousins were on the way. 3am, 4am everybody caught the available transport. We all sat in the hall discussing how things are while Appatha was there in ICU in the ventilator. My grandfather was awake, talking to us about the possibilities and the best thing that can be done. By 7 am the next day, it was visitor’s time in the hospital. We all went to see her one by one.
A gamble. Some luck that might just let her breathe without the machine.
We spoke. Touched her hand and waited. The doctors asked us to make a decision whether to wait and see or to pull the ventilator. It was up to my grandfather and her children. It is for them that she lived.
They chose to bring her home. She came home in an ambulance. The stretcher was rolled through our entrance. On her right stood her entire family. She turned a little, looked at us, smiled a little. The moment she was transferred to our bed, she left us. There were 20 of us facing this death together.
I envy a death so grand.
As I look back, I am surprised by the amount of details I can recollect about her death. And this announcement shows how she was seen all her life as the wife of my grandfather, even though she held positions as the head of the Lioness Club in Madurai, and had a very public life.
Given the bits and pieces of emotions written in this piece, I also want to highlight an irony. People thronged to attend her funeral. They all came to see my grandfather. Our house was crowded. When my grandfather later passed away in 2023, we received only half the crowd. I still haven’t wrapped my head around it to decide how I feel about it.