I do not write this entry for myself. I write it on behalf of the soul departed. But when I climbed onto that bus to Cochin on saturday I was headed for a quiet sunday at home. But before I set foot in Cochin, I received the news. My uncle - V.M Venugopala Menon is no more. After nearly a decade of struggling with diabetes and its complications, he finally succumbed to the silent embrace of death sometime during the early hours of sunday.

For nearly eight years, he had a daily dose of human insulin to keep his blood sugar under check. During my final year in college, he lost a toe and would have nearly lost the foot as well. Ever since mid-2003, his kidneys had started to fail. But he was a man of iron will and still went ahead to enroll as an advocate, travelling nearly the length of Kerala to attend the ceremony in Kasargode, lugging a peritonial dialysis kit. To have that tube jammed into his lower stomach and have the liquid pumped into him was something he hated. But the moment the peritonium lost the osmotic qualities, the horrors began.

When I saw him month after month, he seemed to grow shorter and weaker. The haemodialysis which started off on a weekly basis, slowly became a necessity every other day. A complete kidney dysfunction, combined with the diabetic's slow healing, totally ran riot in his system. To see him on that wheelchair with his swollen feet, bitter about the world in general, yet prepared to fight till the end, if only for his children. His resolve only grew stronger as his health deteriorated.

We've always had our differences. But the blame is often quite evenly distributed in that. Of course, in our last conversation he probably forsaw this day. He was talking about the things he had left to see - my cousin's marriage, her brother's job. And then he said "Marikkenda samayam varumbayuthakum, ethokke nadakanam". And yet, didn't.

Maybe it was all for the good, to not let a man suffer so on this God's earth.

posted at: 02:22 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, family, death