When death occurred, so very, suddenly, we couldn’t, adapt, but, eventually, as time passes we’d, learned that it’s the love we felt for those whom we lost that will, forever, stay, translated…
My in-laws live out in the countryside, still very agile, and healthy. Every now and then, we’d gone home to visit them, the two would start complaining about each other, and everybody was laughing and enjoying ourselves, not known, that bad luck was, already, at our, doors.
On an August morning four years ago, my father-in-law lay slanted on the floor, passed out into a coma. We’d rushed him to the hospital, where we were told, that he had a hemorrhage in his brain stem, he’d fallen into comatose after the surgery, was in, a vegetative, state. In the hospital, my mother-in-law kept telling me, “Your dad always called me weaker, that he would let me die before him, how can he do this now?”, not wearing enough clothes, she was pale, but, without any tears, and stated to us, “if you are going to set up the funeral for your father, don’t waste time nor energy, just do it like the elderly neighbor woman.”
Destiny is this, when it comes, you can’t, stop it.
On that very afternoon, as my father-in-law was taken to surgery, I’d given my mother-in-law a lift home to rest a bit, the families called us, told that my father-in-law’s surgery went well, that they got the hematomas out, the two of us, embraced and started crying, we’d thought, that the skies are, turning light. And yet, not long thereafter, my mother-in-law complained that her heart was beating too fast, that she was, feeling, ill, and the ambulance came over, again.
the new life after their elders are, gone…

photo from online
In the E.R., this time, it was, my mother-in-law who’d gone into, a comatose.
The doctor on duty told that it might be the Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, caused by enormous emotional distress of sudden onset, causing the heart to not be able to cope. A week later, my mother-in-law had an embolism in her brains, and we’d decided, to have her, unplugged then.
My father-in-law kept his promise, stayed alone on this earth, to withstand the tortures of his body, he’d become, slimmed down very quickly, and a year later, he’d, finished all of his, missions on, earth.
That old house dimmed down, faced the sunset, all alone now. We live in the city, and rarely made it back, didn’t want to, get reminded of, all of, this. Until the start of the pandemic, in stage-three alert, we had, no other places we can go, and finally, we’d, returned back to their, old, stay.
Cobwebs, geckos, the cracks on the walls, the dust, the leaks……….from that day four years ago, there were, the traces of that day that remained, we’d, started, cleaning up, and, a lot of the, secrets, they’d, begun, surfacing, back up.
At the bottommost layer of that old camphor cabinet, we’d found the saving books and the stamps stashed there under the few bowls; the camphor beams on the roof, there were, the gold necklace my in-laws saved for their granddaughter as dowry; in the notebook there was, the ledger of how much they’d spent by the days, they’d only spent $5,000N.T.s on groceries, there were the diaries my mother-in-law kept during my father-in-law’s service terms, when they were, separated, with how much she’d missed him…………..
Those who’d, suddenly departed, couldn’t say goodbye in time, using this means, to leave traces of them selves behind, so those who’d survived, can, slowly, heal, using their own ways.
Last winter, we’d started setting up the racks out in the garden to plant a loofa; started in October, the bright yellow flower of the squash started, fighting to get our, attention, the fruits were, grown in by the huge numbers now. The yellow and green colored country scene, the new life began, in the, old-style mansion home.
And so, life still goes, on, even after those whom we loved and cared about are, gone, and, after the griefs all you will remember about those whom you’d loved and lost, are the, better memories all of you had made, and share.
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