On The Deathbed…

Huge lobby with white marble flooring. Huge statue in the center with both arms open and pointing towards the sky. Green curtains everywhere. A very typical smell. People around in a very typical dress. Sitting there in the hospital’s lounge, my eyes were gazing at a face. A face which I don’t think I can ever forget in my whole life. It was probably the most expressive face I had ever seen in my entire life…except that the expression on that face was…rather there was no expression on the face, and it still had the capability of narrating an entire epic.

An epic of sadness. An epic of loneliness. An epic of despair. The face saw something imminent. Something unavoidable. Something that the tattered body had made a compromise with. Something to which the willpower had given up. Given up and accepted defeat. Its gonna be, anyway, the last fight for her. The statue in the lobby which symbolized hope…which looked like receiving the blessings from up above, suddenly posed a different meaning. The open hands were calling to the Divine as if a child seeking his mother’s embrace after a tiring day at play. Yes, the play was about to be over. The time was near for the eternal embrace.

The drooping shoulders were telling a tale about the burden they had lifted the entire life. Burden…rather, responsibility of being in a family, supporting another and probably raising one. Playing the role of a daughter, sister, mother, mother-in-law and grandmother, the life was a fully lived performing all the roles with utmost perfection. Performing? Yes. As Shakespeare had very aptly said, "All the world’s a stage and all us humans mere actors. All of us have to come on stage, performs our stints, and make an exit." On this stage everyone has his or her shares of ups and downs. Sometimes the actors forget the dialogues; at times the music man plays the song in the wrong scene; even worse, the light man gives a spotlight when the stage is supposed to be pitch dark! But the show must go on…It sure goes on. But the act has to come to an end.

And there she was. Lying on the deathbed. Deathbed, which is going to put an end to her act. But the show sure goes on.