Sometimes I like the feel of spitting blood. Other than being saline it is the sacred feeling to see it live, once in so many years, or perhaps only a few times in a lifespan. These days I am living my best- tasting, circulating it in my buccal cavity and eventually spitting it out. Uggh! Ugly, isn't it?
My surgery has left me with nothing else to do but rest. Lying with a straight spine, I spend my day with my over stuffed nose dug in my droid, and breathing from my mouth. Today is the fourth day and I spend sunrise to sunset sipping juice and eating bread and porridge, and not to forget a handful of tablets twice a day- just in hopes of getting better. Sometimes blood mixed with saliva or mucus brings in a different taste. On a normal day it might taste bad, but on bed rest it tastes quite unique and sacred.
There are things that I fear now, things that are more fearful than that surgery. The list of feared things is topped with sneezing and coughing. Sneeze can severely harm by corroding the inner sides of the operated nasal cavity. So I give my best to stop any possible sneeze or coughing. Last when I got instincts of a coming sneeze, fear started creeping in about the immediate aftereffects. Knowing that it had to be stopped at any cos I started rubbing my throat and nose in a repeatedly hasty manner, until it finally got postponed. God knows what cancelled it, perhaps the rubbing or who knows if the sneeze itself felt pity over my state.
There are a list of activities that can not be performed as smoothly as on a usual course, to quote a few- brushing, chewing, walking, bathing, etc. But anyhow you've always got people to take care of you. Thanks to the wonderful lady called 'mother' who never tires out of serving and the little companion called 'sister', who leaves all the good stuff for her brother, taking pains to serve and wipe him repeatedly. And then there's a 'father', who might not cook and serve but he never forgets to abide by the social and financial responsibilities in his court. From serving the pills every morning and noon to arranging a taxi for check-ups, and he offers his shoulder to rest upon when he seas a limp in my gait.
In these four days I've experiment a lot of things. No doubt some of my biggest learnings that I've made (now) have come to me amidst my struggle for breathing. These past four days of demanded care from my near ones, made me realise the real value and selfless love of a family.
From tying a cloth around my neck before a meal to wiping the chin after every serving, I have been served like a kid in the past 96 hours. No matter what you ask for, and irrespective of the fact how many times you demand it, no one tires out of fulfilling the demand. Something makes me feel, a mother is a real form of god, with qualities that no one else can ever possess. Coz it isn't just the qualities but also the purity of heart that matters. As small insignificant tear drops roll down from the corner of my eyes, my mother never fails to notice them. She comes and sits beside me, rubbing my head she asks me, if it is paining? I nod in a no, but she still persists upon her doubt. And in the course another drop rolls down. Her face frowns and she consoles me saying, just a day more and day after they'll remove the gauges. To strengthen her I smile at her, the smile stretches my nose and I feel a brief pain, but this pain is enjoyable as it is capable of absorbing her pain. Every night she covers me in a blanket and every time during the night her eyes open, she first looks at me and then at the clock.
Yesterday she asked me if I would like to have some tea, I agreed for her satisfaction and I saw her pouring tea into my coffee mug and going through a detailed process of cooling it. In the course of serving me less hot tea, her tea too got cooled eventually, but her satisfaction of serving me was way higher than her care for the taste of her own tea.
On my first day of rest, I had problems sitting up so I spent most of my time lying down and watching movies. In between my father would come to me and check my status, sometimes he brought the newspaper and read the top headlines sitting beside me. Had I asked him something in detail, he would have read me the whole article too, but I didn't intend to bother him.
When I recall the last time, when my parents used to treat me in this manner, my memory dates back to almost two decades. The last time, my mother wiped my chin after food was when I was a toddler, the last time she gave me a bath was when I was probably three or four. The last time she wiped my tears was when I had fallen off my bicycle in my childhood. And probably that too was the time when my father would have read me headlines and storybooks. Things haven't changed for them even in two decades as I've grown up from one and a half feet to five and a half. As those infancy milk teeth have shed off and cheeks have filled in with thick beard, nothing on the contrary has changed for parents. Their child is the same little boy who has 'just' grown up under their eyes, whose every problem's solution is his mother's lap.
So blessed is our fortune that we have so caring parents who keep us safe from all problems and pains. For them we are the same little child (with a weak immune and fragile strength)... But ironically we've grown up!
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