Finding My Way Back

I try my best to always have a smile on my face and a warm embrace ready to be given out to whoever needs it, simply because being happy is important to me. Perhaps the hardest road to take is one back to happiness when you have lost your foothold on it and have traversed into a path of misery and negativity. It's frightening to think that you can be full of joy one day and in the blink of an eye it can take a 180° turn. Today, I am gonna tell you a story of how my happiness got flipped around and how I coped with it.

Unhappiness can come in various forms. Heartbreak, broken friendship, lack of acceptance and a 100 other reasons can bring you down. But I have always managed to bounce back to my cheerful self in time. Time heals most wounds, I once read. And it is true.

But what I wasn't prepared was for unhappiness that rises from loss.

I was walking back home after class and when I checked my phone I had a few missed calls. My heart raced because I knew my uncle had been in the hospital and had gone back home for a while but was back in the hospital again. But until then, I was sure he would be okay. He has to be okay, right? I mean, I have not known a world without him. He and my father are 2 halves of the hilariously awesome uncles, without whom all the family get-togethers would lack the charm that I loved.

I dialed my sister as I stood in the middle of the road and what awaited me on the other side was a feeble and trembling voice. She told me he was in the Intensive Care unit and that he might not make it.

The pain I felt then, seemed to be the kind that can never be matched. He always had a place in my heart, right next to that of my father's. He didn't have children and therefore his wife and him were always the kindest to the kids in the family. I rush to the hospital, uniform, schoolbag and all.

I beg them to let me see him, but agree when they explain to me that it isn't the best idea. I believe them when they tell me that tomorrow I can see him.

My sister and I sit by his wife and console her. People told me that with the treatment he was receiving, an 80% chance of recovery was expected.

I believed them.

The odds that he would be in the unlucky 20% seemed irrelevant. I had found hope in the 80% and I entrusted my trust, faith and everything in between in that. Which is why I agreed to go back to class the next day. For I was sure I would see him again.

The next day, I rush back home to call and find out what is happening and then I felt a sorrow that I knew no match for. He was going to be moved to the ventilator. Now I know, it's meant to help him. But the reality of the situation struck me 10 times over just then. He might not make it. We might have to pull the plug. I know I cried. I don't know for how long.

I take a cab to the hospital, but again they stopped me from seeing him. They said it would be too painful. He looks like he was sleeping, they said. But the tubes that ran up, down and all over him had apparently encased him. He aged faster in there, they said. So I didn't see him.

Night fell, and I still kept my optimism intact. After all 80%.

I was never one to pray for things in life. But I prayed. I prayed like I never have before. I hoped. I cried. And I prayed.

I promised my aunt that he would make it. After all, he wouldn't leave her alone. She was sure of it.

The doctor came by with his report for the evening and said he was stable. More hope. He will make it. I was sure of it.

We go back home after assuring my aunt that he would be okay. We told her we will be back the minute the hospital allows visitors. My sleep was tormented that night. I tossed and turned in bed, the feeling of unrest suffocated me. Sometime in the darkness of the night I fell asleep, for what felt like a few minutes, only to be woken by the barks of my dog. She heard voices outside and so i got up to take a look.

I saw my father rush out of the house. My mother asked me to go and dress to leave. He had gotten sicker. We had to go over at the earliest. I run to the bathroom and rush through my business.

6:22 am- I text my best friends as I cry and tell them to pray for him. I no longer ask for him to be free of sickness. Just to spare him till I can see him.

When I got out I saw that my mother had bags to take and my heart fell. It seemed like she had packed for a funeral and I screamed at her. I told her to stop assuming the worst would happen.

I had put my faith where it didn't belong.

We got to the hospital and everyone looked like life had been sucked right out. His parents sat in front of the ICU, their faces emotionless. His sister sat beside her parents, her eyes staring off into nowhere.

He died at 6:20 am, 18th February 2018.

The tears, the prayers, the hope. They were all useless. The faith that we had became anger.

They allowed my cousin sisters, my brother and I to bid our goodbye to him and let us in and we made our way to his bedside. And there he was. A tangled mess of tubes and machines around him. His body still pumped air and so he looked like he was asleep. The 3 of us girls broke down in tears and cried harder than we ever have. To lose him was to lose the life of our family. I hung onto my brother and cried into his chest and felt like I was slowly sinking. My sisters, his nieces, were crying onto him, begging him to come back. I had always seen it in movies and thought it was an exaggerated dialog. But here it was happening before me and I agreed, I begged too. For a miracle. After all, it's him! If anyone gets a miracle it should be him!

As they cried onto his lifeless body, I watched how his body pumped air because of the ventilator. Up. Down.Up. Down. His belly moved in the rhythm of the air he 'breathed'. Suddenly he stopped. They pulled the plug. And I saw it. He stopped breathing. His body became still. The warmth of his body was long gone and now the last breath.

The pain I felt that day cannot be matched by any heartbreak or a teenage misery. The loss we felt that day was the highest form of sorrow that I can humanly fathom. I did not know how to escape the misery that had me shackled. I found myself begging for the pain of heartbreak a 100 times over for that can in no way be a match to the loss we had in losing him.

I decided to write about this because it's the 17th of May, 2018 as I write this. 3 months ago I believed I knew what unhappiness was. But it all changed all too quickly. Tomorrow will mark 3 months since he left us. And if I am being honest, I still haven't found my way back to happiness. In the back of my head I always go back to the last images I had of him.

Here's what I want to tell you though..

I will find my way back to happiness. Even from this pain.

My uncle always had the heartiest smile on his face. His arms were always wide open in embrace. His hugs were magical, they had love and warmth in it.

And so will you. Whatever pain lies before you today, it will pass. You will find strength. Remember that the sun will shine after every nightfall and that the storm passes.

I will find my way back.

You will find your way back.

Hold on.

Until next time,

The Invisible Wordsmith.

To the best uncle one could ever ask for. You are missed, so very deeply.