Tag: Child loss

Posted in Grief, Travel

Faces

Posted on by Mridu Vashist

July 11, 2018

We live in a time when it is common, even expected, to be in the public eye all the time. On a recent trip to Shanghai, I noticed how many people were taking their selfies. I understand the need to capture a moment in an interesting place. However what  I noticed particularly was the amount of care taken in capturing those moments. People, mostly women, spent several seconds, sometimes up to even ten seconds, arranging their faces before clicking that button. The lips pouted just so, the eyes opened wide, faces slightly lifted or turned to the side or lowered depending on what they thought their best viewing angle was, and a bright smile to show how happy they were to be there. Followed by a quick bounce back to the same expression that was on their face before they started arranging it for the selfie. In observing them, I felt myself to be intruding their private moments. It was a glimpse of who they were, how important it was for them to look good, to show where they were and what they wanted people who saw their pictures to think. Yet here they were, comfortably and publicly packaging themselves to advertise their fascinating lives to their ‘followers.’ There was not much separation between private and public faces in those moments.

There is however a big separation between professional and public faces when there is no selfie at stake. On this trip I have seen the work faces of people around me. They are pleasant, friendly and hardworking. They hold the door open for you. They say hello and “No thank you” when you say Thank you. It is nice and almost endearing. Yesterday I saw the public  or out-of-the-office faces of people. We took the ferry and went to the island of Gulangyu near Xiamen. It was the mad Olympics at the ferry terminal – the running, the pushing, the shoving, the cutting the line. People were running to get on the ferry (ok I buy that.. you want a good seat) and to get off the ferry (why? The island is not going anywhere. And neither is the boat until everyone who wants to get off is gone.) Then I caught the expression on the face of the guy who made it out first. It was a victorious expression. He wanted to be the first to do what everyone else was still trying to do.

Vanity and ego are luxuries we afford ourselves when times are good. When we are steeped in sadness it is hard to get excited about a selfie or being first. It is hard to even get a picture taken. I hate to take pictures of myself without Zubin. I am afraid that his pictures will get buried lower and lower under all these new pictures. So everyday I go back and take screenshots of his old pictures so that he would continue to show up in my Photo feed. Will I resort to photoshop-ing him in my pictures one day? I don’t know. All I know is that his face is no longer in the photos I have been taking, and I couldn’t care less if mine looks good in them.

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Posted in Grief

Where is Home?

Posted on by Mridu Vashist

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.