On Grandma’s deathbed

Truth was, I didn’t want to come,

Grandma was hanging by a few more breath,

And all around was the smell of gloom,

That feel of damp, and a bit of death

Cocooned in all my college fun,

This was not the place for me - 

And looking at those two tired eyes,

This was not how she was meant to be

Grandma knew; she always knew,

She called me with a gnarly palm,

As I sat by her side, the past returned

The edges dissolved, and all was calm

The tears came how I never know

Perhaps they have a memory too,

But Grandma smiled, as she always did

As if all was same, nothing new

Grandma spoke with a raspy voice,

A few more words for a rainy day:

‘This too is a part, my child

You cannot always run away…’

Run I did, from the hardest times,

Anything that I couldn’t bear,

Some sadness here, or grief at times,

And the fun-loving youth was never near

And Grandma knew, though she never said,

An escapist never wins the world,

She had called for me, for that one last look -

And to live that day, so gray and dulled

There are those times that rewrite your book,

When the preludes can all be easily torn,

When you learn to smile on a cloudy day,

When dusk replaces your love for dawn

When I look back now, I smile a bit

Wise words, till her very last: 

Some lessons in life have got to be lived

No shortcuts, none, and nothing fast 

Even today, when the climb is hard,

I tell myself and recall that day -

This is a part of the pilgrimage too:

You cannot always run away…

9th April, 2021

Cover image: AA