Introduction

Introduction

We don’t talk enough about the impact of losing a parent. We don’t talk enough about how a sudden loss differs from a gradual one, or even an “expected” one.

Why don’t we talk about it?

Because it is the circle of life? That’s true.

Because it happens to everyone? Also true.

Because it makes people uncomfortable? Perhaps that’s the biggest reason of all.

It’s uncomfortable to speak about the depth of your loss. It’s uncomfortable to sit with someone else’s grief for longer than a few moments. Unfortunately, I can now assure you that none of these truths lessen the pain, the shock, the confusion, or the hopelessness that can follow the loss of a parent.

I lost the love of my life — my mother — in January.

Her death completely caught me off guard.

She wasn’t young. She had turned 83 only a few months earlier. But she was healthy for her age and remarkably sharp. She cared for my father completely, and whenever my children and I visited from California, she somehow managed to take care of every detail for us as well.

No one who knew her believed her time was near.

But life had different plans.

On that ordinary day, she went shopping to buy herself a new pair of shoes, possibly in anticipation of her two daughters arriving from the United States just six days later. Without warning, she suffered a catastrophic brain hemorrhage that rendered her unconscious within about thirty minutes.

A doctor until her very last conscious moments, she continued directing everyone around her. She instructed our household help to call the neighbors. She told the neighbors to check her blood pressure. She directed them to take her to the hospital where she had spent much of her professional life — All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

She fought to maintain control of a situation that was beyond anyone’s control until she could no longer speak coherently.

By the time I rushed from the United States to Delhi, she was in a deep coma and on a ventilator.

Eleven days later, she took her last breath.

Those eleven days felt both endless and impossibly short. My mind was awake for every second of those day, not being able to make sense of anything at all.

She died early in the morning, as the world around her was beginning to awaken.

As shattered as I was — and still am — I found comfort in that. It felt meaningful that she left when it was getting brighter outside, as though it marked a new beginning for her. As though she had somehow negotiated even that final detail with destiny, knowing that darkness would have been harder for her youngest child to bear.

For twelve days I prayed constantly: Give her back to me — but only if she can remain herself. Only if she could retain a good measure of the life she loved. And if that is not possible, then give her a dignified death. And please, don’t let it happen in the middle of the night. Nights confuse me.

Someone listened to a part of my prayers.

She kept her dignity in the end.

And she left as a new day was beginning — bright and beautiful, just as she has always been in my eyes.

But coming back to my original point: would talking more openly about losing a parent have changed any of this?

Would it have made the pain smaller?

Probably not.

But perhaps it would have helped me spend my time with her more wisely near the end.

The problem is that real life gets in the way. “Live every day as if it’s your last” and “don’t take life for granted” are beautiful ideas, but daily responsibilities have a way of dulling those truths. We assume there will be another visit, another phone call, another conversation.

Sometimes there isn’t, as I tragically learned.

Maybe if we spoke more honestly about parental loss, we would also learn how to better support those who are living through it. Maybe we would understand that grief doesn’t follow a schedule and that the loss of a parent can leave a person untethered, no matter how old they are.

For now, if your parents are still here, call them. Be a part of support system to someone who is dealing with a loss.

And perhaps that IS something we should talk about more.