The Day I Couldn't Bring My Father Home

There are some days you remember in pieces.

A room. A face. A sound. A number on a screen.

And then there are some you remember almost minute by minute.

When my father became very ill in Guwahati, we decided to fly him to Chennai for treatment.

We took an air ambulance.

There were doctors and nurses on board. And there was me.

No one else was allowed to come.

I remember sitting there looking at my father and wondering if he would survive the flight.

This was the man who had taken care of me all my life. The person I had always assumed would know what to do when things went wrong.

Except now, he couldn't.

And suddenly, I had to.

By the time we landed in Chennai and he was moved into the ambulance, everything was dropping. His blood pressure. His heart rate. His oxygen levels.

It was during COVID and the roads were almost empty. The ambulance drove at a speed that would probably have terrified me on any other day.

That day, all I wanted was for it to go faster.

Somehow, we made it to the hospital.

He was rushed into the ER. There was no time to call people, discuss things, think about what to do. The doctors needed to act immediately and they needed me to make decisions.

So I did.

Just me.

My husband joined me later. My mother, my children, my family were all very much part of everything that happened over the months that followed.

But those few hours were mine alone.

And I think I grew up during those few hours.

Not in some profound, coming-of-age kind of way.

I just remember this very clear feeling that suddenly I was the adult.

I was taking care of the man who had taken care of me all my life.

Months later, I found myself alone with his doctors again.

This time, the conversation was very different.

They told me that we had reached the point where doing more wasn't going to make him better.

I had to let him go.

Again, I was alone.

I don't know how you make a decision like that about someone you love.

I don't know how I made it.

I just know that there are some moments after which you are not quite the same person you were before.

The last night

I remember standing beside him knowing he was gone.

I remember touching his face.

I remember how strange it felt that the man who had always seemed larger than life was suddenly so still.

But most of all, I remember the helplessness.

The feeling that surely there had to be one more doctor, one more medicine, one more prayer, one more chance.

I remember staring at the vitals monitor.

Watching the numbers.

Then watching them again.

Almost willing them to change.

Almost believing that if I looked hard enough, prayed hard enough, loved hard enough, something would be different.

It wasn't.

At some point, people came to take him away.

I remember thinking, no.

Not yet.

I wasn't ready.

I wasn't ready for strangers to walk into that room.

I wasn't ready to let go of his hand.

I wasn't ready for the finality of what was happening.

Some tiny part of my brain was still waiting for someone to tell me there had been a mistake.

That the numbers would change.

That he would open his eyes.

That somehow we would all go home.

We didn't.

There wasn't a mistake.

There was only goodbye.

Going home

Strangely, it wasn't in that hospital room that the words I couldn't bring my father home really hit me.

It was on the flight back to Assam.

My mother was there.

My husband was there.

My children were there.

I was there.

And the one person around whom all of us had gathered for so much of our lives was missing.

Except he wasn't really missing.

My father was on that flight too.

He was in a coffin in the hold of the aircraft. (I still find it incredibly difficult to even write that sentence)

I had flown out of Guwahati with him beside me in an air ambulance, watching him, wondering whether I could get him safely to Chennai.

And now I was flying back.

Without him beside me.

That was the moment it really hit me.

I hadn't been able to bring my father home.

Not the way I had taken him away.

More than four years later

People say grief gets easier with time.

Maybe it does.

I don't know.

What I do know is that more than four years later, my father is still in my mind every single day.

Actually, that doesn't quite say it.

He is in my mind every waking day, in some way or another.

And I am not exaggerating when I say that not a single day goes by when I don't cry for him.

Not one.

Sometimes it is a photograph.

Sometimes a song.

Sometimes something one of my children says.

Sometimes something wonderful happens and he is the first person I want to tell.

Sometimes something goes wrong and I want the one person who could somehow make me believe that I would figure it out.

Sometimes there isn't even a reason.

He just comes into my head.

And the tears come.

I have moved on.

I work. I travel. I laugh. I make plans. I worry about my children. I get excited about things. I build a life.

I am happy.

And I miss my father every waking day.

Both things can be true.

My father believed I could do absolutely anything.

And perhaps that's also why those two moments - that journey to Chennai and that conversation with his doctors months later - changed something in me.

Both times, there was this very clear realisation: I was the one who had to make the decision.

There wasn't someone else I could turn to and ask, what should we do?

I had to decide.

I had to be the adult.

And when you've spent your whole life being someone's daughter, I don't think you're ever quite prepared for the moment when those roles reverse.

I don't think you go through moments like those and return completely to the carefree person you were before.

Something changes.

It did in me.

And sometimes, without warning, I am back on that first flight.

Sitting beside my father, looking at him and wondering if I could get him safely to Chennai.

We made it that day.

I got him there.

I just couldn't bring him home.

P.S. For the longest time, I couldn't talk about any of this. Even now, more than four years later, I struggle to.

Writing has become the one way I can.

In fact, losing my father is probably what started me on this path of writing in the first place. Somehow, putting down the things I can't always say out loud gives me a little relief from the grief.

So I write.

About him. About loss. About life before and after.

It doesn't make me miss him any less.

But somehow, it helps me carry it.