A good conversation

Today, I went to the hospital to see my mother in law. The docs have been saying we should remove life support and let it end. I let my father in law and my mother in law's sister go down and when I was alone with her,  I held her one eye open, pressed my face close to hers and told her not to worry I will take care of Naanna (Subhash's Dad), I will keep him with me and look after him, you go happily, don't worry and she actually nodded and there were tears in her eyes!

I was surprised and that is putting it very mildly. Then I told her since you are not opening your eyes, everyone is assuming you cannot hear, but you are able to see, able to hear and able to understand right, and she nodded her head once again. The tears continued to stream.

Then I called Subhash and told him to come up since she was responding to what we were saying. Everyone asssumed she was lost and can't hear what we are saying. He immediately came up and talked to her too. We asked, do you see who this is? Thammu (they call Subhash that amongst them)  has come, and she nodded again. And he was surprised.

Then we told Subhash's brother and when he went back and talked to her, she responded to him too, apparently!

I told her a lot of things, and asked her a lot of stuff, just like I would ask the son. When she cried, I said, "No, amma is a good girl and she must not cry, right", and she actually nodded again. And with this conversation, I suddenly found my peace. I got through to her. She could hear out what I had to say. She was not really lost already after all, and we could still give her some comfort, some parting thoughts, something at all.

I asked her "Shall I go now, I need to go and cook for Naanna" and she was not nodding her head, she wanted to talk, she started moving her lips, at one point a slight voice escaped her throat. I asked her, "What do you want to tell me", but she kept moving her lips and we couldn't make out anything she said. Whenever I said I'd go and come back the next day, she'd start moving her lips, as if asking me not to go. She never nodded her approval for me to go.

I told her many times not to worry about his Dad. We'd be there for him and look after him. I somehow felt she was worrying about him. I felt happy I had my conversation with her and that she actually could hear, see and understand what I was saying. Hopefully this will make her happy and peaceful too, just as it made me. I came back very happy today, I have not felt it in the past few days. And I am happy I was able to enable that for both the brothers as well.