Disclaimer*: The articles shared under 'Your Voice' section are sent to us by contributors and we neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of any facts stated below. Parhlo PInk will not be liable for any false, inaccurate, inappropriate or incomplete information presented on the website. Read our disclaimer.

6 years ago, life was normal. On a bright sunny day, that started out, as usual, my grand-dad picked me from school. We came home together, had lunch together, a normal family afternoon. I never knew that it would be his very last normal day. Around midday, he started feeling drowsy, he had shooting pains in the back of his neck. My mom, being an educated woman, and aware of his hypertensive condition rushed him to the hospital, but alas, it was already too late. He suffered a hemorrhage. I was too young to understand what happened to him but growing up I saw him lose control, one day at a time.

He was a patient, a fighter and he fought. For 6 long, hard and painful years, he fought, he gave it all he had. From the first thing being, having to give up driving, to losing his hearing sense, to losing the ability to speak properly, to having limited movement and in the end to not even being able to eat. He was a man who valued his independence all his life, who never asked anyone for help no matter how hard things got and he saw himself get helplessly dependent every day for 6 long years.

6 months ago, he tried to get up with the help of a walker, halfway through he fell, the fall slit open his forehead, and he didn’t scream, he lay there, bleeding profusely, but not a sound came out of his mouth, he just waited for someone to find him. That is the kind of man he was.

6 weeks ago he had a clot on the base of his tongue, the man who had already lost everything, could now not even eat without experiencing excruciating pain. I came home one day and found him laying in bed, refusing to take his medicines, his words still echo in my mind, ‘this world is not for me anymore, I don’t want medicine, I just want to go’. I don’t think I can put into words what effect those words that he barely mumbled out had on me. That is the day I saw the light die out in his eye. That is the day, my hero, the fighter I knew gave up. And that was it.

A week in, his condition kept getting worse and worse. With completely normal vitals but the complaint of insane pain in his hands, he spent his last two days screaming without pause. At 6 in the evening, the moon for Ramadan was sighted, his breathing started getting abnormal, with what looked like signs of a cardiac arrest, and an unavailability of ambulances for another 30 minutes, 30 minutes that he did not have, he went away in my dad’s arms as I watched. I watched the fighter fall back and take his last breath. And the screams finally stopped.

For a second my heart stopped. As his skin got cold under my hands, I felt shivers go down my spine. We still took him to the ER even though I knew he was gone. I still stood and watched the straight line on the ECG. I still stood by my dad as he closed his eyes. I saw it. But I’m still not sure. Im still not sure that he is really gone. I will never see him again. His radiant smile, his powerful presence. Never again.

I learned a lot these past 6 years, I  learned to care for things that really matter, I learned how many blessings we ignored every day, I learned how we take life for granted. How we spend every day striving for a perfect end when in reality, there is no such thing. There are no perfect ends. This moment, the moment is all we have. I learned how maybe the best way to go away is being around the people you love, and maybe that’s all we can hope for. I learned to never wait for tomorrow. I learned to fight. I saw what strength meant.

Life is not easy, far from it. I always thought there was nothing worse than being born with a mental abnormality. But for 6 years I saw this man, this man with an intelligent, completely normal mind, losing control of everything else, understanding too well, exactly what was happening to him. Seeing and experiencing his worst fears come to life in front of his very eyes, and being complete, completely helpless.

I don’t think there is anything worse. I doubt there is anything I could have done to change what happened; I have strong faith in everything happening for a reason. I pray, I pray from the depth of my heart, that his suffering has finally ended, that he is now in a place he deserves. One thing is for sure, love is eternal, my love for him did not die with him and never will. That is the only thing that lasts forever, in one form or another.