Death

I'm at the hospital today. With a friend who has been told that his father is sinking and may have only a few more hours to live. Started with kidney failure and led to organs failing one after the other. He has been on life support for several days now but I guess now is the time to start facing the inevitable.

Faced with death at such close quarters I'm suddenly feeling really small. How casually I wrote about life going on but it stops sooner or later! And about a vegetable on life support who's relatives are wondering when and if to pull the plug. When I wrote those things I felt clever. Now that I'm seeing these things I feel terrible.

I learnt something today. Virtually every vital organ of the body can be kept going by machines. Heart, Lungs, Kidneys. But when the brain starts shutting down, there's no way to support it artificially. The brain. The supreme command of the human body. The only reason he's still alive is because his brain is not yet dead. As the blood pressure keeps dipping and goes below the critical point, the brain will stop functioning and that will be that.

He is in the ICU. He is heavily sedated. He is hovering somewhere between life and death. There are tubes coming out of every existing orifice and some new ones that have been made surgically. There are machines grimly beeping all around him.

I am in the waiting room. I am fully alive. I am hovering somewhere between objectivity and emotion. There are tense expressions, hushed voices, symapthetic pats, moist eyes and lumpy throats. There are humans grimly staring into nothingness around me.

I can see my friend standing at the window now. He's been brave. He has to. But he breaks down once in a while. He's crying right now. Someone is talking to him in hushed tones. I want to go and comfort him. I can't give him false hopes. But I can surely help him prepare for what's to come.

Strangely, life does go on.