The Passing Away of My Son

The house, still the same, is no longer quite the same. It holds the same furniture, everything material is as is, yet a gaping absence prevails. He arrived on a spring day in 2012—April 15th; he separated yesterday (April 29, 2024) at 6.23 PM. Pauchaa, my beloved son, is strewn all over my body and home, quite literally. His fur, his bowl, his toys, his food, his poop scooper - all seem to be asking what we are to do now. Why are we here when he's gone?

For a fleeting instant, Pauchaa appears to amble into the room. I can even hear his claws tapping the floor. The next instant – a roaring absence rings across from disillusionment. My heart is heavily pounded with the overwhelming despair of having him back. But how can I deny the reality that I buried him yesterday with my own hands. Vivid memories of our time together keep flashing. The realization that he is forever gone wells up the eyes with tears. Shedding tears is our natural response to grief, an evolutionary trait of releasing intense emotions and etching a permanent loss into our flesh. But I refuse to let this grief become a relic and return to the state of business-as-usual. For I have erred to Pauchaa in not doing all that I could have, when the end was perceivably approaching.

Bearing the sight of the lifeless body of a lively being with whom you lived under the same roof for 12 continuous years – is like the world turning on your head. I wonder how long Pauchaa gasped yesterday before I finally arrived. For all the while the tyrant called death was trying to sweep him off, he tried tooth and nail to stay his ground. He must have tried his best to reach out to his anchor, so to wrap himself tightly around and secure himself. But where was I during those moments? When I finally arrived, they were his final moments. He heaved four more sighs and slipped beyond my reach. I will live with the regret of not being with him sooner during his last moments.

In the terrible moments that followed, Pauchaa’s body looked benign. He was lying on the floor with his eyes open, the way he had been lying most of the time the last month. I vigorously shook him in an effort to revive, hoping to notice some movement of life. In a state of terrible shock, I kept peering into him with eyes wide open in a state of complete shock and disbelief, kneeling motionless beside his body. It was then that I was struck by a bizarre, irrational longing. Can’t I wake you up, Pauchaa? Can’t you give me some more time to take you to the hospital? To try and cure you, so we can continue living together? And I choked. And, then tears bursted out.

Pauchaa has gone to sleep forever, leaving me to regret for the rest of my life my inaction of not admitting him to a hospital in his last month. How could the medicines prescribed by a doctor be effective when the boy had almost stopped eating! I’m not sure what happens to a soul after death, so I can only wonder where my son’s soul resides now and what it is doing. Or does it even exist, still? If yes, can it hear my apology?

I would like to believe that there is a Cosmic Soul—an ocean of pure love. If there is One, I wish my boy flows through it freely, flows unburdened, flows in bliss.

𝐼𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒, 𝐺𝑜𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑚𝑦 𝑒𝑛𝑑… ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑓𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐼 𝑎𝑚…