Damn You Oscar Wilde!

The Skype meeting finished early. Much earlier than the expected 4pm close, it got done at 3.20pm. I had even finished a couple of emails that were my action items from the meeting. My daughter had magnanimously agreed to be given a nap by the nanny, so I had a whole 40 minutes to myself in the closed study.

I opened the right side draw of the desk and a couple of my dad’s favourite decorated envelopes popped out. A year and three months since he passed on. How he loved those envelopes and how we loved buying new patterns for him so that he can use them for gifting at weddings and housewarmings!

I opened the left side draw and a there was a much used ball-point pen. My mom had even used it on that last day. The last full-moon day, the first day of the New Year. Today is the next full-moon day. A month has passed. Life is topsy-turvy. That month seemed like a year!

“Blood-moon, blue-moon and lunar eclipse!” scream the headlines! Only on that day – a month ago – I was telling her how the Sri Lankans call it ‘Poya’ and how it is so important for the Buddhists. I will never see the beauty in a full-moon or be fascinated by the mechanics of an eclipse again. I hope I can pretend to, so that my daughter isn’t denied that fascination!

Lady Bracknell popped into my mind: “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

I must have been 18 or 19 when I first read ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.  At that age and later whenever I have read the play again, how I have laughed at that utterance! It doesn’t seem the least bit humorous now.

Have I been careless? Did I take care of them well?

My dad had put an end to that thought in the best possible way. A couple of days before, we had been all very positive. The cardiologist had said that he can be moved to the ward the next day. As I was leaving the ICU after visiting hours, Dad held me back by my hand and said in English, “You have taken care of me very well!”

How much I have thanked him for it during the past year! He left no room for my self-doubt. What an amazing thing to say for a man who used to call me “useless fellow” and “irresponsible fellow” until I was 30!

Mom didn’t have any time for that. She was speaking to me in the ambulance while wheezing and panting hard. All of us thought that it was just a breathing difficulty and we’ll be back home by morning. And then suddenly she was not breathing hard. Even as I tried calling out to her and shaking her we reached the Emergency Room. Less than 10 seconds. No pulse. They revived her and for the next five hours they tried, but she never regained consciousness.

And then, with the decorated envelope and the ball-point pen in my vision, I finally cried. I really cried properly with tears. They at last flowed freely for the first time.

I am relieved now. Some of those bottled up things are out. I can hear my daughter’s non-stop chatter with the nanny. She has wormed her way out of that nap. “Sweet my child, I live for thee.” Tennyson was so perceptive!

I still can’t help but say, “Damn you Oscar Wilde!”