July 20, 2018
Last Friday I was in Chengdu, to visit the Panda Bears, or as they are called in Chinese, Xiongmao. Chengdu itself is a midsize city with the usual high rises and a large assortment of construction projects – some in progress and some abandoned. As the cab drove into the city, one of the first things that I noticed was the Sichuan Cancer Research hospital and then next door to it, a children’s hospital. There were other hospitals and buildings there too, I am sure. But my eyes are now first drawn to the hospital buildings that have the words children and cancer in them – two words that have forever altered my life. Not too long ago I was with Zubin in a similar pediatric cancer hospital on the opposite side of the world. There must have been a family on vacation then with their healthy ten year old, who would have driven by the very building where we were in the throes of our life and death drama. Just as before them, I had passed many similar buildings where sick children fought for their lives. I am sure I had hurried past, with averted eyes, confident that such a thing would never happen to us. Have I been called to do penance for all those times when I had been engrossed in my own safe cocoon, refusing to feel the suffering of other unfortunate families? All I can say is that it was not intentional. I just had a different set of problems that I was trying to solve then. Inconsequential problems in hindsight, but deserving of my full urgent attention at the time.
Life is a series of flashbacks of moments. I remember moments when Zubin was with us. And I remember so many moments when he made us laugh. Even in his last awake moments we couldn’t help but smile at his sassy words and incredibly cute gestures. How do I feel in those moments? Like I can’t breathe. I feel claustrophobic in my own body. Then I find myself returning to the idea of staying in the moment.
Adult Pandas in their solitary lives have mastered the ability to exist in the moment. When they are eating, their attention is focused two hundred percent on the bamboo stalk in their hands. So much that if they feel tired while eating they just flop right there on their dinner table but keep on eating. Eating for survival has a whole new meaning for them. A baby panda weighs on average 100 grams (0.2 pounds) at birth. By the time he is a year old, he weighs 40 kgs (88 pounds.) He has to eat enough bamboo to put on all that weight in 365 days. Basically they eat, they sleep, and they exist. Looking at their cute gestures and expressions and their simple lives, I felt that at the moment I wouldn’t mind being a Giant Panda. Being human comes at a great price – the ability to think and protest and expect and demand and imagine the countless what-ifs. Aren’t the simplest things the ones that give the most pleasure? The simple act of sticking with a bamboo stalk and enjoying it to the max seems a far better state than to hunger after the next exotic food in order to extract the maximum enjoyment out of life. Leave it to a grief stricken mom to get life lessons from Giant Pandas!
Zubin celebrated his brother’s birthday for the last time by giving him a Giant Panda. We had together spent a long time online looking for the perfect floppy stuffed toy. And this was his present to him. I wish he had been there to see his brother’s face when he saw the real Xiongmao for the first time. And I wish we had Zubin with us to see his cute face watching his brother’s. So many missed moments that I hungrily long for. And yet so many other precious ones to jealously preserve. We missed you so much that day Zubin.
Thinking of Zubin 