On Rini
I have encountered death in the past but not ever been in a conversation with someone who was dying. Mostly, I have not been around people whilst they were dying. Even when my mother died, a shocking experience for me, an act of fate due to a human error, I never got to say goodbye. I had just spoken to her in the morning before going to work and she was doing fine having walked for the first time after her second knee surgery. Then I got the call a few hours later saying she was in anaphylactic shock and was dying. We will never know when she died, but I remember my sister-in-law holding the phone to her ears so my brother (who was on a plane in Dubai) and me (in a car frantically driving back home) could whisper in her ears, hoping for the best.
Rini was the first person I got to speak with whilst she was expecting to die. We were oblivious to the fact that she was terminally ill. In fact, we even celebrated her birthday last year at our home. She had had an earlier bout with cancer and had been treated for it. So we were under the impression that she had recovered. But fate was cruel to her, the cancer had relapsed and spread, and eventually snatched her away from all of us. Her family put up a brave face and no one disclosed to us what they were all going through. I truly admire them for how they handled a very difficult situation.
Just about a year ago, a good friend of ours Rini bid good bye to this world. She was a true free spirit, one of the most talkative persons I have ever met. We learnt of her being terminally ill and being in hospice just before Thanksgiving last year. We didn’t get to visit her in the hospital till after Thanksgiving as we were tied up with family events during the holiday. Rini, was someone you would never forget if you had the occasion to meet her. She was loquacious, had that graceful smile and was a great conversationalist. She could talk about almost everything and had an opinion. She was a great friend of my wife and I had gotten to know her along the way. I can only remember the endless conversations they had over the phone that lasted hours and not minutes. Rini, who had two masters in biophysics and genetics and had taught in college, also was a volunteer at school and championed her children in arts with both her children being exceptionally accomplished in Piano, Bharat Natyam and in Choir. She was also an exceptional cook and her Malai chops were legendary in our household.
What I am about to describe is a recollection of the conversation we had at her hospital bed. Rini was not one to be quiet even when she was in pain. She was in hospice taking pain medication to make the rest of her life comfortable. We (my wife and I) reaches the hospital late in the afternoon. We walked up to the hospice ward and I waited while my wife went to see her first. They were great friends and seemed to have those limitless conversations on the phone that lasted for hours at a stretch. Turns out that everyone who knew Rini had a similar experience and relationship. My wife was gone for a while, between thirty minutes and an hour. When she came back she asked me whether I wanted to go see Rini. I said sure, but was really not sure what I would say and how long I would stay.
But I decided to go and find out. I walked in to her hospital room, she was in bed but in cheerful spirits. Little did I know of the pain she was in both physical and mental. She was taking a controlled dose of pain killers for pain management. She welcomes me into the room and gave me her hand. I walk up to her and held her hands as she started talking to me. I think she spoke for thirty plus minutes non-stop in her inimitable style. One would have never guessed she was dying. Neither did I, for we had been told that she had decided not to take chemo and endure the pain and suffering. I had no idea that she would die in two days after our conversation.
Rini says — “Hello B, I am sorry to be meeting you under this circumstances. But thanks so much for coming by.” She is not happy with her circumstances but says that she has chosen not to be treated further as she does not want to go through the pain and suffering of chemo all over again. She tells me why she made the choice to let things happen as the prognosis from her doctor had not been very good. She is worried about her family and I reassure her that they will be fine and tell her we will continue to be in touch with her family (something I must admit was easy to say but has been difficult to follow through). She talks about her children and her husband and finally speaks about herself. She talks about how she would like to meet my wife and me in her next life. She talks about how she enjoyed conversations with us. She said she wished she had spent more time with us. She advices me to take good care of my wife. She talks about how fragile Indian women are. How tough it is for a woman to grow up in India and come to live their married life in the US. She talks about their traditional upbringing and the cultural dilemmas they face when coming to the US where their husbands want them to be modern while their traditionality inhibits them from change. She pleads with me to to realize this before it’s too late. She talks about how our professional lives demand so much time that we can hardly spend time and get to know the ones we love. She urges me to realize how precious life is and how quickly time flies. Our conversation ends as she finally gets tired and I am also getting uncomfortable having been challenged to think a lot about life and its meaning in a short span of thirty minutes.
My memory fails me as I try to recollect all she said. But that conversation with Rini probably would be something that would be on my mind for as long as I live. Most of what she said made a lot of sense. We all take things for granted and don’t always value every moment of our life. Life’s journey makes us all travel different roads. If only we can realize how every moment of our life is we might have a whole different attitude. The quality of our life and that of those around us especially those we care for will be transformed. Rini truly was a great soul and left a permanent mark on me. On this first anniversary of her death let’s all make a vow to rethink all our valued relationships and make a concerted effort to make them even better.
