The Museum of Lasts
We kept tugging at the same thread. Me from one end. My mother from the other. I would stretch it so hard that the tension grew unbearable. Every day, I’d press down on it — just to check if it’s still holding well. It trembled whenever I did so. Fragile. Frayed. But intact. Until one day, it snapped. Hard, sudden, and out of nowhere. So sharp that it left a cut on my finger. But it didn’t bleed at first. It stung deep below the skin, like a quiet mockery.
While I made a desperate attempt to outstretch the thread of life, my mother was ready to let go. The suddenness of death is quite funny. We’re all waiting for it, while never truly waiting. And that’s the beauty of it. ‘Cause when it comes, it doesn’t give you a second to ponder or sink it in. It just happens. A blink; and suddenly, there’s a before and after.
My mother kept struggling — not just with illness, but against her will to keep going. Heart, kidney, lungs, liver, limbs, brain – her entire body had turned against her. And I, in my desperate attempts to keep her afloat, ensured that she’s taking her medicines well, visiting her doctors regularly, and getting her vitals checked every now and then. She would detest me for it, almost begged that I should spare her the troubles. I never understood the depth of her exhaustion. For me, her stack of prescriptions were more like a rulebook that she had to follow to live.
Glucose testing five times a day, insulin injections thrice a day, and 30,000 medicines that kept changing every other week.
She’d often tell me how her body is no longer hers. How it’s only being controlled by everyone but herself. And there I was, dismissing her frustration and complaints like a routine, until one day, every experience involving her quietly became the last.
If death has taught me anything, it’s how you’d never come to know which one of these moments is your last.
The last call. The last trip. The last dinner. The last fight. The last cooked meal.
Suddenly, you find yourself negotiating with the universe, making futile attempts at undoing something you never did in the first place. Now, months later, I am meditating on her lasts. And I’ve realised the lasts of all experiences don’t come with the next button. All I can do is keep pressing replay, again and again. Not because I expect her to return, but because I refuse to let her vanish. So here’s to the lasts.
The Last Video Call
This one, I regret the most. She was at the hospital, frustrated. She wanted to complain for the hundredth time that she hates it there. And it was my futile attempt to make her understand for the hundredth time that it’s important for her. I was busy. After spending hours of overthinking about her and being her distant physical and emotional caregiver 24×7 for years, I wanted to rest for the night. So, I had to cut the call short. I didn’t make much effort to listen, to provide her solace – responding with pragmatic reasoning to her overly pessimistic complaints. I was washing my face, so I bid her goodnight, and she disconnected the call. I didn’t even see her for one last time. It was late at night on the 17th. And she passed away early morning on the 19th.
The Last Cooked Meal
It’s been nine years since I’ve lived away from my family. And I can say that it never got easier for her. She would still long for my presence, and start planning elaborate meals for me three months in advance. I never quite understood her obsession with something as ordinary as a dinner on the day I arrived. And the breakfast the next morning. Three months in advance?! I’d nod along with fake excitement, only feeling the real joy when the meal was actually laid out in front of me. Even at the hospital, she was busy planning the menu for my baby shower. I kept telling her there was still time. But she wouldn’t listen.
Her plan never materialised. That “payesh” that she was so lovingly planning to feed me didn’t see the light of the day. Now, I crave for her hand cooked meal every single day. Her last iconic paneer curry, chicken kosha, khichuri, raw papaya curry, upma, ghonto, dalma, echor, among many others. Her recipes used to be so measured, elaborately and meticulously prepared, and almost ritualistic in how they all came together. I often find myself trying to replay her artsy act of cooking in my kitchen. But no matter how closely I follow her method, it never tastes the same. Because what’s missing isn’t just the technique. It’s her love.
The Last Trip
Thankfully, she made it to the Lakshadweep Islands, even while she was unwell. We knew it would be a challenge: planning a remote island trip with someone who could barely walk a few steps. But I’m so glad we went. It was the end of September, and the islands had just begun opening up for the season. While everyone else was off swimming or trying every possible marine sport, she would quietly sit by the ocean, filling her soul and her phone gallery, all by herself.I know she wanted to feel the sea. Not just see it, but feel it.
Every morning while we were there, I’d sneak out of our room while the others slept. My husband would still be curled up in bed, and my father and brother would join me only after a while. I’d walk alone towards the water to catch the sunrise, and I’d see her. Already there. Waiting. Without fail. The days we were there, catching the sunrise was the only profound experience that she didn’t like to miss. And when she would find me next to her, she would tell me… “I knew you’d come”. To be honest, I knew she would be there too. No doubt I love sunrises and the morning breeze by the sea. But if there’s anything that would wake me up from bed so early in the morning before the golden hour, it was the certainty of her presence. Those three irreplaceable mornings — they were the last mother-daughter moments we shared. And they’ve stayed with me ever since.
The Last Message
It still haunts me as to why she had specifically asked us to take care of ourselves in her last message. As if she knew what was to happen. As if she was convinced she was losing herself. The call that had preceded this message wasn’t the most jolly. It consisted of her usual mood swings — a result of the relentless side effects from all the medicines she was on. She was frustrated. I was drained. We were both trying to communicate across the fog of illness and distance. But that message… it felt like her last attempt to mother us, even when she was at the edge of not being anymore. As if her love, even in those final moments, had no place for herself. Only protection for us. Only grace. Only the kind of quiet love that lingers long after the person is gone.
The Last Rites
The day was a blur. I was five months pregnant, tired from a recent trip. And there I was, early in the morning, making way for Kolkata. Not to meet my family for a happy occasion, but to see my mother shrouded in a white cloth, ready to set sail to the other side. When we arrived, I remember feeling like an alien in my own house. With so many people flocking the corners while trying to study my face. People I did not know. People I wish were not there. Loved ones whose heart broke for our family. I wasn’t ready to face her. I didn’t know how things unfolded then. But in retrospect, I know that the last rites aren’t what they show in movies. It has no place for emotions. They are marked by quiet logistics. Where the flowers would be. No oil. No spices. The first meal cooked after her passing had to be bare, minimal — a soulless rice and mashed potatoes without salt, without flavour, without comfort. Even grief, apparently, came with a menu. We weren’t supposed to leave the house alone. No combing hair. No touch of colour. As if mourning demanded not silence, but visible proof of suffering. Someone was offering us tea. Someone was asking me what the next set of action should be. People I hadn’t seen in years now seated on the floor, right next to my mother. Suddenly my mother was addressed as a “dead body”. Even on the thirteenth day, the priest made us chant mantras while making some elaborate offerings. He asked our names. Our ancestral details. Our gotra. As if we were submitting her government form to Gods. All staged, all choreographed.
You cannot evaluate how long the lasts would stick with you with all its details. But they meet you in unexpected moments, while you’re busy navigating the after. Maybe that’s what grief is all about — it’s our desperate attempt to keep preserving the museum of lasts till our last breath.
