Eyes

Eyes

Wednesday 31 March 2021

The miracle of Easter



How long had it been since his last good night of sleep? He’s the worrying kind, the fussing kind. The first born of four, #1. It was many days before things actually went wrong, before the really bad part came. Worriers stress over all the things that could go wrong, long before they actually do. Emotionally high strung. Borderline hysteria. Prone to extreme hyperbole, extreme protection, and extreme caring.

Life happens. Differences arise. They grow, they ebb. As adults, you leave each other alone. Mostly. Not in indifference. Distanced perhaps. Being that each got located in different corners of the world, each battling their own struggles and victories. 

#1 bore the responsibility for the parent folk, while the rest got on with life. He did it with dedication and pride. He did it like no other could. He did it, like no other.  
By the time #4 had arrived, #1 was a train wreck. Tripping over himself from exhaustion. How many nights had it been? Blood shot eyes and 10 years older. But the fort was held. Strong and steadfast. Witnessing the leader of the pack suddenly collapse - talking and joking one moment, unresponsive motionless the next, had ripped him to bits. Lost. Lost, was the summary of the bulk of messages to #4, popping-up in patches of mid-flight Wifi. She was on her way as soon as the news was out. On the next viable flight. She was too late.

#2 is a tricky one. Easily misread. Explosively volatile. A ticking time bomb, at any given time. The pin is pulled. Ready to go off. It’s complicated beneath the hostile exterior. A perfect bluff. Gentle, yet strong. Aggressive, yet affectionate. Evil, yet kind. The 666. A believer. The Bible reader. 
He was there on time to form a formidable team.

#3 is chaotic confusion. Tends not to overrate emotions. Perhaps it’s an aversion. Stacked neatly under the carpet is a nice little heap of complexities of human relationships. It never gets too hot or too cold his side of the world. Storms blow over, differences forgotten, conflicts forgiven. 
Against all chaotic visa confusions, compounded by COVID, he made it, and made it count. 

#4 is the dependable tempest. ‘Jhansi ki Rani’ he often playfully chided (child queen that fought the British). With no army and no cause. She stays on the warpath just in case. Her hidden reserves of energy make for pedantic and exhausting encounters. Caution: bring patience along.

Crises build self-organising teams. An action plan borne out of need and experimentation. #1 had the night shift. Six-footer folded up across two waiting chairs. His bed every night. #2 covered the early morning shift, leveraging his US-India jetlag relieving #1 from the night-shift. #4 took the mid-morning shift, it gave #2 a late breakfast-break before day-care continued. As COVID began to surge in Mumbai, access to the ICU became more and more restrictive - slinking past the guards a skill unto itself. The work must go on – saying the rosary, messages read and played back of memories and moments with children, grandchildren, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, cousins, friends…. interspersed with his fav music collection. All the love from across the world pouring in. He cried at Unchained Melody. Every time. Twitched every time he heard his wife’s voice. #3 had his eye on her, his wife. Her perfect distraction. “Never a harsh word” was how she described him. A political diplomat - the need of the hour. Her comfort and consolation.

There couldn’t have been a better team. It couldn’t have been a tougher time. 
"It doesn’t matter what happens to you" he said. "It’s how you take what happens to you, that matters". Their world flipped and then the whole world flipped, and they held it together. He is proud of #1, #2, #3 and #4. Of that, there is no doubt.

Easter will make it a year. What he started a year ago has grown. He left back 4 satellites, now re-aligned in the same plane of orbit around the sun - his wife and partner of 50 years, and point at which all of them originated. 

A celestial wonder. An Easter miracle.