The last day…
It was a very hot day not unlike the last week of July 2023-the last few days of July 1996. I remember the morning of July 29, 1996, so vividly. I woke up as usual, early, went downstairs and made my customary coffee, or did I drink tea back then?
In the beginning….Our love was the love of newlyweds; those days were more of infatuation, discovery, and physical love. But after 20 some years of going through the ups and downs of life, we had evolved and arrived at true, unadulterated love.
Both our children were away in college and doing so well. Now it was our time, not the immature love of our youth, but mature love that was going to last another 30-40 years, perhaps.
It was total acceptance of each other on both our parts, an unselfish love, no more desire or need to change each other, mature and unconditional.
I had just turned 46 and he 54 in June of 1996. We were at the best stages of our adult life. There was no yearning for youth, but we looked forward to getting old together. We held hands almost always, even, and especially in public. The kids even noticed it and talked with each other, the teenagers found it amusing, but cute. Unabashedly, we showed affection for each other.
The morning of July 29, I remember coming upstairs and seeing him sprawled on the bed without any sheets to cover him, for it was too hot for covers. My heart felt tender at the sight of him sleeping peacefully, and as I write this, the picture of him comes to my mind vividly and I tear up. It is 27 years, but the memory of seeing him on the bed …is just so fresh. I can almost touch and feel the warmth of his skin. It is funny how things come and go out of the eyes of one’s mind. Some memories come into focus, but others fade away like a dream.
I want to turn the clock back to July 1996. I want the time to stand still, I could not imagine that warm day in July 1996 what was waiting for me for the rest of my life. What would I have done had I known what my future held after that day?
What started as any ordinary day, I could not imagine that by next morning, he would be gone, and I would wake up in a hospital bed having had a nervous breakdown the previous night as he underwent surgery to repair his ruptured aorta. I was not even there for him in his last moments…that fact haunts me to this day. Perhaps I was too weak? It is so painful to go back 27 years to that July day in 1996.
I thought I could put my recollections of those two days and days that followed down on paper, but it is still too painful, and I am unable to continue writing. Like my daughter told me many years ago, why even look back and relive those very difficult, heartbreaking, and emotional days. Yes, I think I will not look back to the last few days of July 1996, but go farther back to those happy days when we were a family of four.
Perhaps I will never write the story of those excruciating days-not just the day we lost him, but of the years that followed before I came to acceptance that he was no longer going to come. I would have to walk the path alone. I think of my children who were just 19 and 21 and my heart hurts so badly for them. If he had not been such a wonderful father, would the pain be less? Perhaps… The last few weeks of July every year are the hardest, for my mind goes back to July 1996. I suppose this is how it will be for the rest of my life. I know I will come out of these dark days again, and life will return to normalcy.
Yet, I don’t know what normal is anymore, I had not expected this on March 30, 1970 when we got married. Never dreamed that at such a young age I’d lose him…a man who in our early marriage, I’d miss him and cry when he left for work and how I stood by the window of our apartment waiting to see his car pull up into the parking spot. It would get my heart racing.
Every single year after the first few painful years after his death, I would write my memories in my mind and then in my diary lest I forget him. Some days I wonder if he even existed or is just a figment of my imagination.
These days, periodically I write my feelings in a blog on my website, and somehow it seems to help. Come every July, it’s almost like the pressure builds up starting in the beginning of the month, and I must let the steam out or else my heart will explode.
Having said that, I am so grateful for my life today with two wonderful children and four happy, content, loving, bright and healthy grandchildren who I love to pieces and who love me back with equal fierceness. I am truly grateful for my life.
Image is of us on our wedding day, holding each others hands and vowing to be life partners. For me, it meant for MY lifetime…’
KAMALA VENKATESH 