The Invitation Cards

 

It has almost been 5 years since my father passed away. 5 years since I decided that in order to survive going forward, I had to find a way to turn my emotions off. So, on the few occasions in the year that I allow them to come back on, I’m reminded of how painful my reality truly is.

2019 was the worst year of my life – so much so that even the Covid pandemic ravaged 2020 and 2021 seem pale in comparison. Financially, I was at rock bottom, and despite working almost nonstop most of the year, I was barely paid 2 months of salary by the start of December after getting screwed by both the government and private sectors. Near the end of the year, I found myself trying to sell furniture that I thought was surplus to my needs in order to try to get some cash to pay the bills. I was humiliated on multiple occasions by my new landlord for being a doctor who couldn’t even pay the rent on time.

 I was in a toxic relationship that was getting worse every day and destroying my peace of mind in ways I least expected. By November it was over, but not before sucking the life out of me. A few months earlier, me and my father were thrown out of my home for the previous 25 years by our relatives abruptly and without warning.

And by the end of November, my father got sick and it wasn’t long before he was in the ICU on a ventilator. And being a doctor, I understood this was going to be the end long before it actually happened.

Over The Edge

Even when my father was hospitalized, I was still working. I was not in a financial situation to take leaves, especially now that I would have to pay the hospital bills as well. Although I had wanted to just get treated at a government hospital considering the situation we were in, my father was against it completely and as a son, I was not going to oppose him on something like that now. Especially after his own sibling threw him out of his house.

Those 2 weeks in the hospital waiting area were horrid. I just wanted to curl up into a fetal position and cry my eyes out. At that point in my life, there was literally nothing that was in my control in any way. I was a slave to the forces around me, being carried away into a black hole.

To make things even more unbearable, my ex figured this was a perfect time to start gaslighting me to my family members while simultaneously stalking me at the hospital waiting area in the hope that I would take her back. As was her nature, she got into a completely pointless argument using vulgar language with the guy who was taking care of my father at home in that waiting area. My sanity was hanging on by a thread.

And as is typical for such situations, it was an incredibly minor issue that truly pushed me over the edge. I was pushed by a security guard in the waiting area one day after I arrived after a fairly busy night shift. A combination of the lack of sleep and the hopelessness of my situation lead me to go into a big verbal spat with him until the home nurse and another family member pulled me away. It wasn’t my proudest moment.

My mask of being the brave little son came off for a brief moment. I managed to get the security guard posted somewhere else. In hindsight, this was perhaps the beginning of my anger issues – something that I would become notorious for in the years to come.

After The End

It was in the late afternoon of the 5^th of December that I got the call on the way back from duty. He was no more. My heart sank. Time seemed to get slower. I reached the hospital and saw him for the last time before the funeral. I touched his hand and found that it felt ice cold. It was then that was it truly started sinking in that I had lost my father forever.

After the initial outpour of emotion at that moment, I had decisions to make about the funeral. Specifically, when and where it was going to happen. The first was a straightforward decision – I wanted to get the formalities done with as soon as possible. The latter was not so easy.

I had two options – either hold it at the flat we were staying in for the past few months under force by Aunt May or accept the offer of having it held at May’s home. Neither were particularly appealing options, but I opted for the latter since it was very close to our old home and that would just have to do somehow. Even if it meant it would give Aunt May the chance to look like a hero once again in front of other relatives, something she desperately wanted to wash off her own guilt even if she scarcely deserved that kind of chance.

After losing the only parent I had left, the first person I decided to call was actually Cathy. This seems such a stupid decision now, especially considering we haven’t spoken to each other in over 3 years and I had barely known her for about 4 months at that point. But it shows how isolated I was after 3 years in a toxic relationship. I was cut off from any other reasonable support system for so long, it was inevitable that I would open up to the wrong person while feeling so shit. She didn’t bother showing up to the funeral or afterwards and quietly blocked me on the phone the next day.

This is probably the reason I seem to fetishize my sadness so much in the years after that. It’s far less painful to open up about my pain on this blog than to someone who just doesn’t give that much of a shit.

The Invitation Cards

The evening of the 5^th of December, 2019 was when I first turned off my emotions. I decided I was not going to cry. I was not going to show weakness, not there. Not in front of some of the relatives who had given me and my father so much grief in the preceding months. While the crocodile tears rolled in from certain corners of the room, I remained stoic. Thankfully, there was no bad behaviour from anyone to trigger me that evening (my ex included), unlike during my mother’s funeral.

The brave face didn’t quite last as long as I would have hoped as I had a mini mental breakdown after Cathy blocked me 2 days later. I put my headphones on that morning and went on a long walk alone and cried far away from anyone could see me. I got some of the grief out of me before I returned to Aunt May’s house for another funeral.

Aunt May’s mother-in-law had also passed away from terminal thyroid cancer a few days prior. The function was as you would expect for the most part until I saw the invitation cards for the post-funeral programme a few days later. It was a beautifully made and clearly expensive card compared to the cheapest black and white card that was used for my father.

2 funerals at the same house and yet the difference was still palpable. At least for me. Even in death, my father would still be to them what they always thought of him – the black sheep of the family. And I, his son, and my feelings were even less important. The only times they’ve contacted me in the past 5 years have been to sign some property deals and tell me that I’m not entitled to any of the acres of land they think is theirs.

Those cards were the final sign that despite my earnest efforts to care for my father after he became bedridden two and a half years prior, I had ultimately failed to bring dignity to him in his final few months. And I will have to live with that failure for the rest of my life.

No One Will Be There

5 years ago, at my father’s funerals, many friends reached out saying they would be there for me. 2 months after that, no one was there as I truly understood how alone an empty house can feel while going through grief. All this was made worse by the isolation created by the pandemic.

I learnt to manage by learning to turn off my emotions bit by bit each year. 2019 Mehul was a silent participant in his own sorrow by failing to stop those who hurt him repeatedly out of a sense of wanting to avoid conflict. The 2024 version of me is seen as a heartless person with a bad temper who has no tolerance for bullshit.

While sometimes I do lament this transformation, it is simply an inevitable consequence of my past. The ones I have lost fill me with sorrow and the ones who have hurt me fill me with rage. I have built strong walls around me so that people do not see the extent of the pain that fills me inside.

Every anniversary however, I bring the walls down and allow myself to feel once again.  I mourn my parents once more like it’s the first time. So that I don’t forget them and the sacrifices they made to help me get where I am now.