‘We’ve done everything we can do. I’m very very sorry’.

4th December 2015. Even with the best doctors and the best possible medicines Maama wasn’t getting better. Quite the opposite actually. Her lungs had failed, her kidneys had failed, she had hypoxic brain injury, the infection she had run rampant and now she was bleeding from everywhere. Attempts were made relentlessly to rectify that state that she was in. She was on a ventilator, getting dialysed, being transfused with Fresh Frozen Plasma and getting the most potent antibiotics available. But it wasn’t working.

Maama persevered every single time before.

‘Gadha alhaa masakkai kuraa meehakah kaamiyaabu nuvaane evves kameh noannane’.

‘Nothing is quite impossible for people who work hard towards achieving what they want’, she told me so many times over and over again. Maama was true to her word and she got right back up every single time before. Life threw a fractured spine, Pneumonia, Sepsis, a coma and failing lungs at her and she dealt with those head-on and got right back up. But why not this time?  Maama. Are you giving up?

Until that day, during the two measly hours I got to see Maama at the ICU I used to whisper and repeat her exact words to her, hoping it would be some kind of motivation and solace for her to get better.

‘Gadha alhaa masakkai kuraa meehakah kaamiyaabu nuvaane evves kameh noannane ey Maama bunamennu? Rangalhuvaan Maama masakkai kurey ingey? Iraadha kurevviyyaa rangalhuvaane. Aharumen enmen mithiby Maama ah eheevaan’. 

‘Maama. You used to tell me that nothing is quite impossible for people who work hard towards achieving what they want, no?  You just need to work hard to do that okay? God-willing you’ll get better. We’re all here to help you do that’. I used to repeat these words hoping that she’d hear me, be able to hold on to my voice and hopefully follow it to the surface .. until the the day that I had to digest the fact that Maama wasn’t going to be able to do that.

‘We’ve done everything we can do. I’m very very sorry’. The doctor’s voice trembled as he said this. ‘I think it’s best if we give her Palliation now. Make her as comfortable as possible and lessen her pain. We’ll start painkillers so that she wont feel pain and keep her sedated so that she’ll be asleep’, he said. I looked at him, nodded and said, ‘I know .. we know that you’ve done everything you could have done to make her better. Now it’s time to make her comfortable.’. The lump in my throat made it hard for me to say those words. I knew we were giving up after strenuously trying to make her come back to us. I knew I was giving up.

It was tremendously difficult to contain my tears and to find some kind of strength and courage within me to shift my focus from getting her better to allowing her to go peacefully. I am unable to comprehend how I was able to stop pushing her to get better. Perhaps because I knew, deep down in my heart, that Maama’s time was up and that my perseverance would only make her suffer more.

Even with eyes welling up with tears I made sure my voice never trembled when I spoke to her after that day. If she knew that my heart was being broken into smithereens  that would just add to her suffering and I didn’t want that.

‘Maama dhen araamu kollaa. Evves kamakaa visnaane kameh neih. Hiyhama jassaalaa. Nidhaalaa’. 

‘Maama. Rest now. Don’t think about anything. Think happy thoughts. Sleep’, I told her.