remembering those who are suffering
Work looks set to be slow and quiet this week. My boss' father suddenly passed away yesterday morning and all of us from the firm went down to visit him at his place after work yesterday. It was quite a sight to see him in his home clothes and with ungelled hair. He was no longer the funny but demanding boss I was used to at work, but a sombre, quiet and tired-looking man greeted me. His voice soft, his eyes filled with hidden grief. My heart went out to him almost instantly. He spoke to us about the funeral plans in as a moderate tone as he could muster, trying very hard not to break down. His mum was by his side, every so often wringing her hands tightly and listening intently to our conversation, even though she could not understand a word that was being said. Perhaps, as my boss later replied in an email, that it was a way for her (and him too) to momentarily forget reality by focusing on the voices and presence of others. There were still times when he displayed his natural wit. Like when he was showing us his medicine cabinet with labels on each drawer for each ailment. One was labelled ear, another stomach and so on. So a colleague of mine joked that in the ear drawer lay an ear. And immediately my boss picked up on it and said, "How do you know? You should see the "bottom" drawer." At first I literally thought he meant the bottom drawer and was craning my neck to see what the bottom drawers held. It was only after a while that I realised "bottom" meant "backside" and grabbed my hair in mock exasperation at his corny joke. But that was about the only time I saw him laugh that night. Soon the number of friends and well-wishers grew so we left. But I took home with me an unforgettable image of the limpness in his body and the pain in his eyes.
posted by solitude @ 10:40 AM
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