Nearly three months on

It will soon be three months. Three months! Is that already so long ago, or is it only three months? I remember that fateful day in July when I was in IIT Hyderabad when I saw the words `metastatic disease' which are some of the most dreadful words one can see. It came after the the PET scan the previous day. She had gone for the X-ray by herself a few days earlier and Dr Sahay did not like what he saw. She had this bad fever in June. It came and went. But I told myself, only few months earlier we went again and again to the AOI and Dr. Babaiah was satisfied and surprised beyond is imagination. Only three months earlier we had been through this ordeal with Appa and his heart attack and his quadruple surgery. He came out ok, albeit slow and forgetful but surprisingly alright for someone of his age. The next Dr. Sudha told me it was quite bad, maybe a year. I said, a year and started crying in her office. The previous day when Sitanna and I were coming back from IIT Hyderabad and I cried the whole way back. I cried when I saw her in the living room with Appa. She did not know why I was crying. But I am sure she guessed. She was too clever by half. But did not let on. After meeting Sudhar, Umax and I were coming back and I was telling her she will be with us only for a few months. And yet I was not believing it. Then we got opinions from Hochstin. He said to start on trastu and the other immuno-therapy. I was optimistic. This cannot be happening to us us. We are in the best hands possible. The odds are in our favour. She went every Saturday without complaining. Getting her own cat bag and other bag ready with her clothes, change of clothes, curd rice. I was happy I was there every 3 weeks. We will win. We will get a year or two, I told myself. Uma told me Sudha had told her may be 5 months or 6 months. I did not want to believe it. How prescient of Uma to have cancelled her trip to Tirupati for the key-note speech. I said to myself, why is she doing this. Chitti will be ok. She was ok. I see her still, walking in her nightie in Jubilee Hills opening her cupboards, and looking for this or that. With her whatsapp. How cruelly she has been taken away from us. The light of our lives. What can I say? That it is good she went without more pain and suffering? Without more hospitals and tubes and ventilators? I want to look for the bright side. Sadly I am yet to see it. I see her still, talking willy-nilly to everyone. Walking in her garden. Talking to the passers-by, talking to Bheemesh, to Radha. I remember going with her to the pension office on the way to JH in November. She was so pretty even if without hair. I am sure she knew. But she would not tell us...no, this cannot have happened to us...I will not accept it...death be not proud.