I haven’t blogged, consistently or otherwise, in quite a while. It’s not because I don’t feel the need to express myself, quite the contrary. It’s more a sense of apathy and other negative feelings that have prevented me from posting.
So what has changed now?
Well, a few months ago, my cousin, someone who blogged avidly, fell ill and was hospitalized. When I found out, he was in a coma, his organs were shutting down and the prognosis was not good.
It turned out that he had a problem on his leg that he kept on ignoring until the pain became too much to bear. This was not a good thing as he was found to have necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh eating disease. Coupled with his obesity, chronic asthma, and general average health, things weren’t looking good.
The doctors had scheduled him for dialysis, but it was not working as effectively as it should. They were fearful of putting him under a general anesthesia because he was so weak. The prognosis was getting worse.
Then, out of nowhere, the doctors decided to put him under anyway, so that they could clear away some of the infection and hopeful improve his chances. So that’s what they did. They were unable to get all of it, but were able to get a good chunk of it (no pun intended).
A couple of days later, he started to recover. He woke up, was in generally good spirits, but did want to go home. Some swine stole his mobile phone which didn’t help, but I was able to communicate with him via voice messages on his big sister’s WhatsApp.
His stats continued to improve, and while he wasn’t out of the woods, we all started to feel better about the situation. They had further surgeries to conduct, and we didn’t know the extent of the damage to his leg. Truth be told, I was steeling myself for the news that he would lose it, but with the family all rallying around him, we would help him through it.
As an avowed atheist, I had sent him a message telling him to listen to the nurses and doctors and to his sister. I told him that no matter what had happened, we would get him through this. That the road may be long and uncomfortable, but we were there for him. I then added that if he didn’t listen, I would call every local religion and sign him up for their “services”. I even went as far as to threaten to create a new religion, just to bother him!
He sent me back a voice message laughing and agreeing that he was going to be ok. He understood where we were all coming from and was going to be good and listen to what advice he was getting and would work on getting home. Things were looking good.
Less than an hour later, he was dead.
He had been complaining of bloating for a few days, and from what I understand, he had a particular bad occurrence, and while being helped, passed out and suffered a heart attack. Unfortunately, they were unable to revive him and he was pronounced dead a short while later.
As it turns out, this was something that the doctor had warned the family about back at the beginning. They had mentioned that if he did suffer some sort of cardiac event, the odds of them being able to resuscitate him were not in his favor. That’s what ended up happening.
Growing up, he was one of my closest cousins. We shared tastes in music, TV shows, movies and women (for the last one, we both fancied women that were way out of our league!).
As we grew older, we had drifted apart a bit, but the beauty of relationships that are foundationally strong is that when we did connect, it was as if we had last spoken the day before.
It’s hard to explain what it feels like when you lose someone that you love. It takes time for you to realize that you will never get to see them again, hear their voice, or have a simple conversation.
The world continues to continue as if nothing had happened. I guess that’s the hardest part to accept. I haven’t talked to anyone about it, other than my immediate family. I’ve saved his last voice message, and play it every now and then, just so that I can hear his voice, and more importantly, hear him laugh. I feel guilty that I wasn’t there for him (he lives in India, and I live in the UK).
If anything, it only goes to show that we take so much in life for granted. We live with a sense of entitlement – not in an influencer type way, but in the expectation that our lives will not be adversely affected when we wake up the next morning.
Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t leave things left unsaid. Don’t put off an apology until tomorrow that you might not get a chance to say. Hug your loved ones close.
Peace!