NEAR TO DEATH

How is it like to be one step away from death?

Well, it cannot be expressed in words, a feeling of being helpless having nothing to say, nothing to do,  just lying on the bed looking at the ceiling and imagining the last day of your life. A feeling no one wants to feel but this feeling was highest during covid, people on floor just begging for a breath...what can be more dreadful than this. An era that no one wants to remember. There was a family in my colony they had a general store and were living happily until the eldest brother was tested positive his health worsened and they had to shift him to the hospital, all saving gone and a giant wave of sadness engulfed the family, his health worsened, he was not able to breathe properly his face turned red and mouth swelled lips open wide chest blew, all this just for a single breath but his part of air was over. He died that cold night and the doctor fell on his knees seeing one more death and horrified by the nature he sobbed. A high pitch cry ran down the corridor when this news reached outside the ICU where his father was standing to pay the medical bills, the news reached his home on hearing the loss, his mother collapsed...  she hit her head hard down on the floor and never again lifted up. Two deaths on a single day are horrifying.

The news was slowly given to his younger brother who was also in hospital fighting the deadly virus he was brave enough to hear that news but the virus was braver, his health worsened every evening at 5 everyone in our colony used to close their doors and windows and sits apprehensively with hands-on ears and eyes closed because at 5 a ward boy used to come and amid the killing silence of road he roughly drags an oxygen cylinder to his van and at that time the sheer noise of cylinder rubbing the road, passing our house give an assault and                              our heart just stops beating leaving us quaking, that was really

                          NEAR TO DEATH....

Younger one recovered, he recovered from covid not from the devastation covid did to his family. For a few months they lived packed in their house no one even peeked outside. The fact is that only the body dies, responsibilities of them have to be taken up by those who are left behind.

It's been a year but nothing is settled in their family but they are trying. Whenever we see the older brother's widow our soul's quakes and we are reminded that how much near to death we were.

THANK YOU            

Archie