July 9, 2018
I have now been traveling for three weeks. This is around the time when issues such as where to find a laundromat start to gain more attention than I would care to give them. I have about four more weeks left before I have to head back ‘home’. The thought of going back makes my heart sick. I cannot consider what used to be home, my home anymore. It is now filled with pain. Before I left, ‘home’ had changed to a place of loss. Rooms that were filled with the sounds of Zubin’s voice were quiet. The living room where he played his video games and watched his TV shows felt dark and depressing. The sofa cushion where he sat eight months ago still had a slight hollow dent left by his frail body. Before leaving, I had covered it with a thin sheet so dust won’t settle there, and the cushion won’t lose his smell. The bathroom where I had helped him so many times was cold and empty. When I go back, its walls will stare at me helplessly, because surely they too miss his funny songs in the shower. The backyard will have his tricycle, waiting for him. And his blue bubble blower toy, the one he used to blow bubbles from and then try to pop them one by one will be on the patio table. His hands won’t touch those things ever again. What am I supposed to do with them now? I can’t remove them from there. That would mean removing another part of his life with us. The kitchen will feel pointless. I won’t be cooking his favorite food for him anymore. So you see why I don’t want to go back ‘home’?
There are days here also when I want the earth to open up and just swallow me. On the surface I look fine. I smile and nod and try to be light and funny. I don’t want to drag others into the depths of my grief. But there have been times when I have sat across from someone, laughing and talking, while all the time a part of me is wishing for it to be over already. It is wishing to go back to bed, climb under the covers and forever stay asleep. Even in those moments, I do not want to go home. At least I am distracted when I am in a crowd. The energy of others around me pulls me up and keeps my head bobbing over the surface. I can still breathe. When I am alone in that miserable, forsaken, sad, dark, despairing structure I used to call home, all I can think of is that my baby lost his life there. He tried so hard to live, and in the end we all lost, big time. When I am out and about, I can keep my mind busy and for some moments in the midst of countless, I can think of Zubin as just my child and not as my child who I lost.
Thinking of Zubin 