I close the shade.
I dim the lamp.
And then my husband’s last confession began.
‘I cheated on you twice’, he says.
While his eyes always stay away.
His diary has told me that already.
It’s not something that makes me care.
I look down and stare at my hands.
Is there anything I am supposed to say?
He pretends to be tired.
I pretend to be absorbed,
in the blinds that line up the walls.
Anup is drained.
He wants to go to sleep.
I help him settle down,
between the sheets.
The medication gets to him
He is dozing off now...
While I am left contemplating the silence,
which is very irking somehow.
Here is the man I loved and
will always love.
This is the man I married.
And I would have remained
a very normal, happy wife,
had Anup not been felled.
The cancer is not just inside his body,
it has also encroached outside.
And when it does finally take him away,
I somewhere would also have died.
I close the door to his room.
I wander aimlessly in the house.
I look without looking.
I switch my palms and cry.
Throughout the year gone by,
he’s been dazed,
he’s been on medication and radiation,
and he’s been withered away.
But he’s been too ill to know.
Yes he has felt the pain, his body feels,
but nothing more.
I have felt his pain, I have seen him wince.
I have seen him loose his dignity
and become dependent for
even his basic needs.
I have seen him exposed
I have seen him cry
I have lived his despair
I have slowly seen him die
And i have lived my despair
I have cried
I have been insecure
I have lived with fright
There are times when I have thought
Of a life without him.
I have wondered
If I can again, ever be happy.
I have wondered
If i can have a house without
Shadows and silence
Tears and despair.
And whether it can be filled
With children and whether
I can smile without a care?
And there are times
When i wish it was all over.
That Anup was dead
And i was starting all over.
I shared this with my mother
And she went white all over
Love him till his last, she says
Be with him
And care till he finally rests.
But does she realize,
he will still be gone?
That i will still have an empty bed
and will have lived too long. And died.
Is it wrong?
To look beyond the living dead
To start your life all over again,
even when they are still part awake?
My mother thinks
I am immoral.
But hey, do i still have to die,
In a house where impending
death and a near dead man reside?
Do i also have to be lulled to death
With a weight that
is slowly sinking me away
Hey, is it so wrong
to try to save me from myself.

Smriti – EC fourth year