Hello All, I just want to share a story written by my father very recently. The story was inspired by a known person and the girl he loved. Wanted to post it under religion as it is involved. Hope you enjoy it.
The Last Wish
By Sasanka Nanayakkara
Crackers appear to be louder than the thunder. In my dying ears they are no better than a barrage of artillery at close range. I try in vain to lift my numbed hands to move a pillow closer to my right ear so that the deafening noise would be muffled to an extent. It is only that ear that still hears well. The left had left me a month before. When the hands wouldn’t move much, I try to focus my attentive brain, perhaps the only faculty in me that’s still functioning well enough, to the human voices and their movements in the adjoining room.
The chilling Christmas breeze somehow finds a way to squeeze into the room through the closed window to make me uncomfortable. It is in spite of the thick layer of sheets over what is left of me now. But I can almost feel the warmth of the Christmas Eve in my dying heart and Cheryl and Tania must be getting ready to go for the midnight mass. It is their preparation that I heard.
Amarasiri, my faithful attendant within the last three months, pokes his head discreetly through the curtain to check whether I am comfortable. Seeing no movement, he switches off the dim night-light burning feebly on my desolate writing-desk that is bare of any but my medical needs. Then it is Cheryl’s turn to be at the bed-side. Through the half-closed eyelids I could notice that she is clad in sober cloths, quite the contrary to all the Eves I had accompanied her in flashy flamboyant to the same mass. Also, she has forgotten to spray her signature perfume of which the fragrance was always known to fill the air around her. Instead she smells of freshness of a lush meadow after a shower. I feel sorry for her sad plight as I begin to feel her soft long fingers stroking my forehead very gently. Her caring action is coupled with a whispered prayer so familiar. I need not look at her beautiful eyes to witness the silent tears formed in them. All I know is how bravely she let her river of tears flow deep underground, unseen and unheard by any. Her courageous nature was an invaluable asset to me to come to terms with each new day that dawned on me of my restricted calendar.
“Merry Chrismas Prasanna, my love” She murmurs.
“Merry Christmas darling” I doubt whether my mumble of words was audible.
I could hear Tania’s impatience as she has already switched on the ignition of the car. From the corner of my eye I saw the shadow of her opening the curtain a trifle to look at me and cross resolutely. I am sure Tyrone is on the way to the church as well with his family. Since she had already got our blessings, it must be just a matter of time before they tied the knot. Now it is in my hands to tidy things up and call it a day to pave the way for the official function to take place. Tania and Tyrone had known each other all their lives and the sooner my illness reaches its obvious end the quicker it will be for Tania’s beauty to grace the altar. The thought, bolstered by Cheryl’s long sigh and the customary feather-light kiss on my bony forehead brings about a momentarily happiness to my mind. As the sound of the engine fades away into the dark night my last wish continues to haunt me yet again amidst the unpleasant roar of crackers brought about by the pleasant cheerfulness associated with the holy night.
My grave-yard memory jogs back thirty years to the work place in Fort where Cheryl and I first met. When she walked in as the Chairman’s newly-appointed gorgeous secretary it was but love at first sight for both of us. As the accountant of the company, I had to be in and out of the Chairman’s room and that very first spark, ignited on the colonial stairway, made my visits to the Chairman’s room more frequent when he was out. It was that magnetic attraction to one another that blossomed into a passionate love affair in no time. Though I was a Buddhist by birth, nothing could stop me from marrying her in her church and thereby become an atheist thereafter. That was the heavy price I had to pay to win the treasured heart of the devout Roman Catholic. As a result of my devil-may-care attitude then, I was left side-lined by my own orthodoxly religious family but that forced isolation drew me closer to Cheryl and her happy-go-easy lot instead. Though I did not embrace Christianity, I was at her side as if I had and though I lost the warmth of my own family, the sweetness of Cheryl saw to it as if I hadn’t. Much later after Roy and Tania were born we established contacts with them but the ties were confined only to maintaining protocol and performing official duties those of a distanced child and an estranged sibling. They were at my bed-side many times within the last few months after I was diagnosed with the beastly cancer and my doctor-sister flew all the way from UK with her doctor-husband to Singapore when all were contemplating on a useless, over-ambitious surgery on me when all reports of the tests carried-out in that country were against such a step. Like Cheryl did, I never believed in miracles and trusted my sister’s private professional opinion in negating the suggestion and opted instead for pain and depression relief at home-sweet-home during my predicted short await for the ultimate. I still remember how desperately I pleaded with Cheryl to let me be. However, I warmly welcomed their presence at my bed-side and the arrival of my ageing mother at my doorstep for the first-time nearly broke my heart. The visit broke all barriers as well, when she held her frail hand in mine at the time the hopelessness of the cancer was first revealed.
It is during the last couple of months that a certain wish started haunting my alert mind. It was bothering me ceaselessly but I kept it all to myself not wanting to make inroads into the religious beliefs of my lovely little family. I knew how resolute their faith in God was and how passionately they prayed for me. When I could move about, there wasn’t a single church, spread far and wide, known for their miracles that was spared with hopeful pilgrimages. When Roy arrived from USA to see me, the three of them flew to South India to pray for me at the Velankanni and returned the next day. If they had a way of leaving me for a week they would have visited Lourdes too. Instead, time and again she wanted me to memorize a couple of trips we did to Lourdes, in order to pray for a speedy recovery. Then, when my own family wished that I be taken to such places meant for Buddhists, I declined politely sighting my inability to move as much as I wished. Perhaps, I didn’t want Cheryl to think that what her belief couldn’t do was a possibility with another. Thereafter, they wanted to bring-in their trusted clergy to pacify and even cure me, but being an atheist to my finger-tips I let all such requests bounce on me, having accepted reality in the right spirit. Yet, I never uttered a word to hurt any of them, especially Cheryl who had been an essential part of me since that fateful day one on the wooden staircase.
It all started with the tablet Roy left for my use. It was some time ago when I could move about a little and could attend to my day to day activities all by myself in the newly appointed patient’s room at home. I had Amamsiri to assist me by then and though I was weak I was not confined to the bed yet. I valued the tablet a lot to surf the web as I could hold it with both my hands in the reclining position of the propped-up bed or whenever I happened to rest on the shallow easy chair. There was just enough strength and inclination in me to enjoy both; the tab and the web.
It was at this moment of time that a school-mate of mine who is an oncologist domiciled abroad, whom I hadn’t met for ages, called on me to check of my wellbeing. He had heard of my sorry predicament from my sister and had felt that it was his duty to have a chat with me, I suppose with the intention of driving some energy into me to face the rapidly progressing symptoms. In spite of the condition I was in we were enjoying some hearty banter about the good-old-days over a cup of coffee Cheryl very kindly made. It was then that he suggested that I should become a member of the Facebook page dedicated to our classroom of yore. Until then it never occurred to me to be in the Facebook for I thought it was something that meant for the generations younger to us. I must confess here that I hardly saw any of my classmates post marriage nor had much contact, on the one hand since we lived abroad for over a decade and secondly because I joined an entirely different community that had a root structure poles apart from my own, upon entering into matrimony. Perhaps, it is that structure that claimed the absolute ownership of me over the years.
After my friend left Tania made the connection possible and more than staring at over a dozen known faces, some bloated beyond recognition, the portal portraying the pure white statue of Buddha erected in the middle of the great shrine room of our school took me across a long journey to its familiar door-step almost instantaneously. Little that I knew then that the amazement of the discovery would make such an impact on me. It was equally baffling as to why it should have for the iconic image had never been registered in my mind as anything of such great importance. Anyhow, since then I started hallucinating the statue frequently and felt that I neglected, disregarded and finally betrayed its true owner most unfairly upon the grip of the marriage that was made to noose around my neck. I badly wanted to visit the shrine located at where I spent most of my childhood and worship in front of that sacred statue, gazing at those serene eyes that are known to send a river of compassion out, with my unworthy, repenting eyes. Yet, I was devastated at its sheer impossibility for I knew that I would never have the heart to ask Cheryl to grant me my last wish. When a certain death was staring at me, the last I had in my mind was to drag an issue over an offensive wish, perhaps meaningless in her eyes, and hurt her feelings. Though I did not embrace Christianity, at the very inception I had pledged my wholehearted support for Cheryl to continue her religious practise without causing any deviation or the faintest of interruptions that would eventually put the harmony of our lovely little family nest in a quandary. When she had not only been the most wonderful companion for me all my life but such a tower of strength, causing the slightest of worriers to her spiritual belief was not my cup of tea. As such, I bitterly swallowed my last wish and postponed what was itching at the end of my tongue until I found that my strength was on the ebb even to think of it. But on each occasion I knew that I was alone I turned the tab on and stole a glance at the statue. Not one but many. The raging fire of the illness engulfed me by the day and when I couldn’t hold the tab anymore, the last wish too became a thing of the past and I could only dwell on it and hallucinate thereafter.
I had been engrossed in my unfulfilled last wish so much, I didn’t hear the car returning. But I heard Amarasiri getting up from his bed to open the front door silently. There was a brief conversation, perhaps based on my wellbeing during their absence, and then I heard them tuning in. The disquieting noise of the crackers had died down and so had the intermittent Christmas breeze. The silent night has become motionless just like my inert body. Sleep had not come to me that easily lately despite a regular doze of sedatives, more so since the day that I set my eyes on the extraordinary statue, and I know that this holy night would be no exception. In the absence of chariots and flower garlands hung on them, I revere the soothing effect of the statue on me as my mind now seems to focus staunchly on it as if it were just live. It being white as in snow makes me content and happy. Perhaps I would be happier if Cheryl gets to know about a hint of it, even at this late hour, and hang a photo of the statue in front of me so that I don’t have to struggle much to draw it out from my failing memory. After all hasn’t the wish narrowed-down to a mere foot by foot frame now? Even then, I am determined not to disturb her peace-of-mind by asking for it. Perhaps, she will sense the size my last wish has finally truncated to and may not let me carry it to my grave.
On second thoughts, isn’t it the right time to think of the impermanence of the statue too?
.…….……………………………………………………………. THE END …………………………………………………………………….
The Last Wish
By Sasanka Nanayakkara
Crackers appear to be louder than the thunder. In my dying ears they are no better than a barrage of artillery at close range. I try in vain to lift my numbed hands to move a pillow closer to my right ear so that the deafening noise would be muffled to an extent. It is only that ear that still hears well. The left had left me a month before. When the hands wouldn’t move much, I try to focus my attentive brain, perhaps the only faculty in me that’s still functioning well enough, to the human voices and their movements in the adjoining room.
The chilling Christmas breeze somehow finds a way to squeeze into the room through the closed window to make me uncomfortable. It is in spite of the thick layer of sheets over what is left of me now. But I can almost feel the warmth of the Christmas Eve in my dying heart and Cheryl and Tania must be getting ready to go for the midnight mass. It is their preparation that I heard.
Amarasiri, my faithful attendant within the last three months, pokes his head discreetly through the curtain to check whether I am comfortable. Seeing no movement, he switches off the dim night-light burning feebly on my desolate writing-desk that is bare of any but my medical needs. Then it is Cheryl’s turn to be at the bed-side. Through the half-closed eyelids I could notice that she is clad in sober cloths, quite the contrary to all the Eves I had accompanied her in flashy flamboyant to the same mass. Also, she has forgotten to spray her signature perfume of which the fragrance was always known to fill the air around her. Instead she smells of freshness of a lush meadow after a shower. I feel sorry for her sad plight as I begin to feel her soft long fingers stroking my forehead very gently. Her caring action is coupled with a whispered prayer so familiar. I need not look at her beautiful eyes to witness the silent tears formed in them. All I know is how bravely she let her river of tears flow deep underground, unseen and unheard by any. Her courageous nature was an invaluable asset to me to come to terms with each new day that dawned on me of my restricted calendar.
“Merry Chrismas Prasanna, my love” She murmurs.
“Merry Christmas darling” I doubt whether my mumble of words was audible.
I could hear Tania’s impatience as she has already switched on the ignition of the car. From the corner of my eye I saw the shadow of her opening the curtain a trifle to look at me and cross resolutely. I am sure Tyrone is on the way to the church as well with his family. Since she had already got our blessings, it must be just a matter of time before they tied the knot. Now it is in my hands to tidy things up and call it a day to pave the way for the official function to take place. Tania and Tyrone had known each other all their lives and the sooner my illness reaches its obvious end the quicker it will be for Tania’s beauty to grace the altar. The thought, bolstered by Cheryl’s long sigh and the customary feather-light kiss on my bony forehead brings about a momentarily happiness to my mind. As the sound of the engine fades away into the dark night my last wish continues to haunt me yet again amidst the unpleasant roar of crackers brought about by the pleasant cheerfulness associated with the holy night.
My grave-yard memory jogs back thirty years to the work place in Fort where Cheryl and I first met. When she walked in as the Chairman’s newly-appointed gorgeous secretary it was but love at first sight for both of us. As the accountant of the company, I had to be in and out of the Chairman’s room and that very first spark, ignited on the colonial stairway, made my visits to the Chairman’s room more frequent when he was out. It was that magnetic attraction to one another that blossomed into a passionate love affair in no time. Though I was a Buddhist by birth, nothing could stop me from marrying her in her church and thereby become an atheist thereafter. That was the heavy price I had to pay to win the treasured heart of the devout Roman Catholic. As a result of my devil-may-care attitude then, I was left side-lined by my own orthodoxly religious family but that forced isolation drew me closer to Cheryl and her happy-go-easy lot instead. Though I did not embrace Christianity, I was at her side as if I had and though I lost the warmth of my own family, the sweetness of Cheryl saw to it as if I hadn’t. Much later after Roy and Tania were born we established contacts with them but the ties were confined only to maintaining protocol and performing official duties those of a distanced child and an estranged sibling. They were at my bed-side many times within the last few months after I was diagnosed with the beastly cancer and my doctor-sister flew all the way from UK with her doctor-husband to Singapore when all were contemplating on a useless, over-ambitious surgery on me when all reports of the tests carried-out in that country were against such a step. Like Cheryl did, I never believed in miracles and trusted my sister’s private professional opinion in negating the suggestion and opted instead for pain and depression relief at home-sweet-home during my predicted short await for the ultimate. I still remember how desperately I pleaded with Cheryl to let me be. However, I warmly welcomed their presence at my bed-side and the arrival of my ageing mother at my doorstep for the first-time nearly broke my heart. The visit broke all barriers as well, when she held her frail hand in mine at the time the hopelessness of the cancer was first revealed.
It is during the last couple of months that a certain wish started haunting my alert mind. It was bothering me ceaselessly but I kept it all to myself not wanting to make inroads into the religious beliefs of my lovely little family. I knew how resolute their faith in God was and how passionately they prayed for me. When I could move about, there wasn’t a single church, spread far and wide, known for their miracles that was spared with hopeful pilgrimages. When Roy arrived from USA to see me, the three of them flew to South India to pray for me at the Velankanni and returned the next day. If they had a way of leaving me for a week they would have visited Lourdes too. Instead, time and again she wanted me to memorize a couple of trips we did to Lourdes, in order to pray for a speedy recovery. Then, when my own family wished that I be taken to such places meant for Buddhists, I declined politely sighting my inability to move as much as I wished. Perhaps, I didn’t want Cheryl to think that what her belief couldn’t do was a possibility with another. Thereafter, they wanted to bring-in their trusted clergy to pacify and even cure me, but being an atheist to my finger-tips I let all such requests bounce on me, having accepted reality in the right spirit. Yet, I never uttered a word to hurt any of them, especially Cheryl who had been an essential part of me since that fateful day one on the wooden staircase.
It all started with the tablet Roy left for my use. It was some time ago when I could move about a little and could attend to my day to day activities all by myself in the newly appointed patient’s room at home. I had Amamsiri to assist me by then and though I was weak I was not confined to the bed yet. I valued the tablet a lot to surf the web as I could hold it with both my hands in the reclining position of the propped-up bed or whenever I happened to rest on the shallow easy chair. There was just enough strength and inclination in me to enjoy both; the tab and the web.
It was at this moment of time that a school-mate of mine who is an oncologist domiciled abroad, whom I hadn’t met for ages, called on me to check of my wellbeing. He had heard of my sorry predicament from my sister and had felt that it was his duty to have a chat with me, I suppose with the intention of driving some energy into me to face the rapidly progressing symptoms. In spite of the condition I was in we were enjoying some hearty banter about the good-old-days over a cup of coffee Cheryl very kindly made. It was then that he suggested that I should become a member of the Facebook page dedicated to our classroom of yore. Until then it never occurred to me to be in the Facebook for I thought it was something that meant for the generations younger to us. I must confess here that I hardly saw any of my classmates post marriage nor had much contact, on the one hand since we lived abroad for over a decade and secondly because I joined an entirely different community that had a root structure poles apart from my own, upon entering into matrimony. Perhaps, it is that structure that claimed the absolute ownership of me over the years.
After my friend left Tania made the connection possible and more than staring at over a dozen known faces, some bloated beyond recognition, the portal portraying the pure white statue of Buddha erected in the middle of the great shrine room of our school took me across a long journey to its familiar door-step almost instantaneously. Little that I knew then that the amazement of the discovery would make such an impact on me. It was equally baffling as to why it should have for the iconic image had never been registered in my mind as anything of such great importance. Anyhow, since then I started hallucinating the statue frequently and felt that I neglected, disregarded and finally betrayed its true owner most unfairly upon the grip of the marriage that was made to noose around my neck. I badly wanted to visit the shrine located at where I spent most of my childhood and worship in front of that sacred statue, gazing at those serene eyes that are known to send a river of compassion out, with my unworthy, repenting eyes. Yet, I was devastated at its sheer impossibility for I knew that I would never have the heart to ask Cheryl to grant me my last wish. When a certain death was staring at me, the last I had in my mind was to drag an issue over an offensive wish, perhaps meaningless in her eyes, and hurt her feelings. Though I did not embrace Christianity, at the very inception I had pledged my wholehearted support for Cheryl to continue her religious practise without causing any deviation or the faintest of interruptions that would eventually put the harmony of our lovely little family nest in a quandary. When she had not only been the most wonderful companion for me all my life but such a tower of strength, causing the slightest of worriers to her spiritual belief was not my cup of tea. As such, I bitterly swallowed my last wish and postponed what was itching at the end of my tongue until I found that my strength was on the ebb even to think of it. But on each occasion I knew that I was alone I turned the tab on and stole a glance at the statue. Not one but many. The raging fire of the illness engulfed me by the day and when I couldn’t hold the tab anymore, the last wish too became a thing of the past and I could only dwell on it and hallucinate thereafter.
I had been engrossed in my unfulfilled last wish so much, I didn’t hear the car returning. But I heard Amarasiri getting up from his bed to open the front door silently. There was a brief conversation, perhaps based on my wellbeing during their absence, and then I heard them tuning in. The disquieting noise of the crackers had died down and so had the intermittent Christmas breeze. The silent night has become motionless just like my inert body. Sleep had not come to me that easily lately despite a regular doze of sedatives, more so since the day that I set my eyes on the extraordinary statue, and I know that this holy night would be no exception. In the absence of chariots and flower garlands hung on them, I revere the soothing effect of the statue on me as my mind now seems to focus staunchly on it as if it were just live. It being white as in snow makes me content and happy. Perhaps I would be happier if Cheryl gets to know about a hint of it, even at this late hour, and hang a photo of the statue in front of me so that I don’t have to struggle much to draw it out from my failing memory. After all hasn’t the wish narrowed-down to a mere foot by foot frame now? Even then, I am determined not to disturb her peace-of-mind by asking for it. Perhaps, she will sense the size my last wish has finally truncated to and may not let me carry it to my grave.
On second thoughts, isn’t it the right time to think of the impermanence of the statue too?
.…….……………………………………………………………. THE END …………………………………………………………………….
"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path" - Gautama Buddha
