Rimli Bhattacharya writes

The slow death

Each time I saw her,

I knew she would win the battle.

It wasn’t true.

The cloths of cold water

That I had placed on her head –

Praying to God for the fever to break.

Did God listen to me?

Yes, He did what I never understood.

Her lips closed her mouth in a thin straight line,

Her undid grey hair was left lose

By the nurses.

“You know I will be leaving soon”

She had said.

I did not care. I did not listen.

“Take me home as I want to cherish

My last days with you and your father.

Your father whom I loved and have spent

Forty one years.

Once I go you will feel the void,

You will feel cheated,

You will not be ready.”

I chose not to believe her.

I kept her in the hospital.

Tubes and masks covered her;

She gasped for breath

As I watched her petrified.

Will she live, I often wondered?

Yet each time I saw her,

I knew she would win the battle.

It wasn’t true.

She left me one day.

Not me, but us –

Me, my daughter and my father.

I was heart broken

So was my piece of world.

The fissures, valleys and also

The fragmented pavements.

Her death had whispered to me;

I should have trusted her.

I should have trusted God.

 Mme Mazois (The Artist's Great-Aunt on her Deathbed) -- Henri Regnault