“Not that grief ever ends. You learn to exist with it. There is a stone in your heart. Sometimes, it is big; it rubs and makes you bleed. Sometimes, it is small and you can almost forget it is there.”

My mother’s final moments, final days, what she ate, our conversations, how she looked keep coming back into my mind. It has been one and a half years (02.11.2024), and yet, these images I see are so fresh, so new as if these memories have been preserved by my mind: Not one detail seems to be forgotten or lost or faded – every image as if I were still standing there, looking at my mother on my father’s arms, her eyes closed as if she were sleeping, but her mouth slightly open, drawing soft breaths in. She didn’t seem to be in any pain. To this day, I can’t recall if my brain knew what was happening. Of course, I had been told that she would not survive her illness, but I cant remember if I understood what was happening in those early hours of the 2nd of May because I did not fall apart, I did not find it difficult to breathe as I imagined I would be if I were to lose her. I didn’t cry as I thought I would have. I was not in pain as I expected to be. I remember getting through that day. My brain knew or should have known that I lost her, but my brain behaved all funny that day and the next and on the days that followed too: I was not losing myself over the thought that i had lost the one person I never imagined I could live without. Just before I went to bed on the day she passed away, I suddenly remembered that she’s no more: My brain suddenly told me that amma is dead (but I already knew that!). But this time, I cried. I cried silently and deeply and slept and woke up the next morning. It was strange how it seemed like any other morning until a few seconds had passed. Then, my brain said to me me again: “Amma died.” But I didn’t cry. I got up, showered, and wore one of her skirts I had bought for her that she wore while we stayed in the hospital and the rest of the day just passed by like any other; the only difference being my mother was inside a coffin, we were at the Kandy Funeral Parlour, lots of people came, I had some lunch, we went to the cemetery afterwards, my eyes followed her coffin till it disappeared among the crowd, we thanked everyone for coming, and we went home. It was as if my brain was asleep. Shouldn’t it have responded like it normally should have to the stimuli of pain and loss? It just didn’t.

Later on, the memories of her while she was sick and on her last days keep flooding back without warning. I think of her every day. There are moments where I don’t think of her if my mind is occupied with something else. But, without warning, my brain just sends me pictures of her last moments, and when it does, I follow the trail those images leave on my mind and I relive it over and over again, and it is so painful. I can’t breathe, my chest hurts, and I cry in pain. Oftentimes, when this happens, I don’t see her when she was healthy; I see her when she was sick, and my brain does a splendid job in showing me every last detail of those memories. It has been happening over and over – not constantly in a way that disrupts my daily life – but often enough. I think I don’t want it to stop either because I am afraid I would lose my connection to her. But then my connection to her shouldn’t often be to those heartbreaking memories during her final days, should it? It happened to me now at midnight when I was about to sleep and I immediately googled, “I relive my mother’s death in my mind. Why?” And I opened the first article on The Guardian that talks about a story of another girl who had lost her mother as well and described these events that had been happening to her as “flashbacks from a traumatic event.” I don’t want to heal from it: I just want to think of her, and often think of her  when she was healthy. She was happy and content in sickness and in health, but maybe I would like the memories of her that flood my mind to be of happy ones too.

The title of this piece is a direct quote taken from the article in The Guardian by Ann Lee.

Hey Amma,

Remember our Mama, Amma?

The first memory I have of her dates back to 2018 when she had a pup whom we named Pepe. Or maybe even 2017, but I began noticing her because of Pepe. I remember that you told me that there was a little brown pup outside our gate, hiding under the drain on the opposite side of our house. We rarely got to see Pepe because he/she was a frightened little thing who kept crawling into the drain at the sight of anyone with feet. We (our neighbouring house included)  gave milk and yoghurt for Pepe and fed Mama good portions of rice because she was breastfeeding Pepe. I grew really fond of Pepe and even considered adopting him/her (and so did our neighbours!), but the little thing kept running away from us and hiding under the drain.

One day, i got off the bus and went to the shop to buy tea buns before returning home. While i was walking towards our gate, i saw a small, blurry ball moving about on the street. I knew it was Pepe, so i slowed down my steps and walked as gently as I possibly could in a effort not to scare the fellow away (and as an effort to get a good look at him/her), but it was all for naught because I vividly remember the moving fur ball suddenly stop, notice me, and sprint back into the drain again. I broke the tea bun into tiny pieces and left it on the side of our roa,  and stood behind our gate to get a glipmse of Pepe. And there he/she was! Adorable and tiny.  One time, i succeeded in getting close to Pepe with light footstep,  and Pepedidn’tt notice until i was a foot away from him/her. I had a bun in my han,  and as i tried to leave some on the grass, Pepe got startled and bumped his/her tiny head on a nearby branch before crawling back into that drain.

We kept  feeding Pepe and Mama like this. Our neighbour, Mrs. K even got Mama steralized after she had completed breastfeeding Pepe. All of us grew very fond of them, but it was short-lived. One day, i kept calling Mama’s and Pepe’s names, but there was no sight of either of them. I kept calling their names on the next day, and the next, but there was no sign of them at all. Three days later, as i came out of our house in the morning to go to uni, there was a man clearing the neighbouring land which had overgrown weeds and grass. He told my mother and I that he got a rotting smell while he was clearing the grass and eventually found a dead puppy. “Nayek wath gahanna athi, miss,” he said. My heart stopped. I wondered where Mama was, and Mama came running toward us from behind him just then. We assumed that Mama must have been with dead Pepe all along, not answering our calls, and helpless. The thought broke my heart, and I went to uni and wept all morning.

Ever since, we’ve been taking care of Mama. Mrs. K and our family fed her and took care of her. And she took care of us too. Whenever my sister and I would visit our friend in our lane, Mama would follow us too, and wait by the gate till we returned from our friend’s house. Then, she’d walk us back up to our gate. One time, a car ran over her and broke her leg. We kept spraying medicine on her wound, but it began to infest, so my father, with the help of our community-tuk uncles, took Mama to the vet for surgery. We gave her her antibiotics on time with suasages and yoghurt. And many, many years passed by as Mama as our community doggo. Mrs. K even welcomed Mama to her house, but she never stayed put. She preferred the street and always stayed near our gates. Mama went through a lot of suffering (she was taken care of, of course, but it was a difficult life nevertheless). Last year, when my amma passed away, i caught myself looking at Mama and thinking, “After all you’ve been through, you even outlived my amma.” I didn’t think that out of spite; i just thought that. I came home from Colombo today, and thaththa told me that he had some sad news. He told me, “Mama passed away two days ago.” I looked at him, and he continued explaining because of the look i had resting on my face. He said, “dont worry, it was a death from natural causes. The construction workers opposite our house have buried her.” I wanted to ask where? But i knew it had to be in that same patch of land with overgrown weed and grass where Pepe might have been buried in 2018. I would have believed thaththa’s reasoning had he not repeated “died of natural causes” 4 or 5 times to me. I asked nanga what happened, and she looked at Thaththa not to yield an answer, but as if to say, “Should I tell her?” Turns out, Mama was run over by a vehicle. My heart sank. My sister said the construction workers said that she didn’t suffer. And now her suffering has permanently ended.


To our beloved Mama who lived in our lane,

Thank you for your love, greetings, and protection. You’re better off as cosmic energy than in your physical form. Well done, for being you, apart from the occasional jealous growls you showed when we also fed your friend, Foxy. Rest easy, you did well.

Our last week with you

One year ago, on the 25th of April, I woke up on amma’s bed and found her uncomfortably seated on the bed, crouched forward, unable to breathe upright or even lying down. It was the day after we came back from Suwasewana for the second time. The doctors sent us home saying that there was nothing they could do. I heard them. I saw their lips moving as they said those words. I listened to one doctor pull me to the side and tell me with great unease on his face that amma would only survive months when it truth he couldnt bring himself to tell me that it was only days. I heard him. I saw his eyes. But I didn’t process any of that. I was just glad to leave Suwasewana and be at home with my family. What I didn’t realize on the morning of the 25th when i woke up on amma’s bed was that this was the beginning of my last week with her. I woke up that day, her back turned against me. I quickly got up to see if the oxygen tube was fixed properly. She was just falling asleep. But she couldn’t lie down. I felt a stinging pain as i wondered for how long she must have stayed like that? The last hour? Two? At the same time, i was filled with a rage i couldn’t control at God, and I blurted out the following words: “Amma, where is God? Why isn’t he helping? What kind of life is this?” I was feeling guilty for having fallen asleep while she struggled to breathe and do the same. I remember her comforting me and telling me it’s okay and not to be angry with God. I asked her why she didn’t wake me up and she said she wanted me to sleep! This pain will forever live in me. I got up, threw up the sheets, walked up to the living room, and flipped the pictures we had on our shrine. After I had calmed down a bit, I realized how upset she would be to see the pictures turned the other way so i put them back the way they were, losing faith i had in whoever they said was up there. Thereafter, she kept deteriorating right before our eyes, day after day, and she finally found rest on the 2nd of May.

Written on the 25th of April 2024.

Why is the coffin closed?

You left us on the 2nd. We had a funeral on the 3rd. We came back home from Mahaiyawa. No white flags along the way. My father wouldn’t have it. So it felt like any other day, coming from any other visit. Didn’t feel like I attended your funeral. I stared at your closed coffin from far. Spoke to people who asked insensitive questions about your appearance. About why your coffin was closed, whether you lost your hair, whether your body was disfigured because of the sickness that took you. I listened to them, my weary eyes staring back at them, my anger leaving me for the first time without a trace of it ever having been there. A strange feeling.

They lifted your coffin. I can’t remember who did. It was time for your last commute. My father took my hand, and my sister’s, and nudged us to follow you, Amma. So we did. We walked behind your coffin. Watched you being placed in a different car; we got into ours. The three of us, not four this time. We drove behind you: a slow, quiet drive, with our eyes glued to the back of your coffin, understanding that this was happening, and at the same time, just feeling afloat.

I saw the white walls of the Mahaiyawa Cemetery from far. The gate was open. We turned and drove ever so slowly behind you, amma. The familiarity of the cemetery started to sink in.

I got off the car and put my headphones on. I had Well Done by The Afters on repeat. I felt hands of support on my shoulder from time to time. I didn’t come close to your coffin even during the last few minutes. I watched from far. I saw your coffin being lifted again. My eyes followed you till you went out of sight. I was hoping that in that minute, you’d be standing behind me. I hoped the hand on my shoulder was yours,  telling me, well done, Akki, for being so unlike the daughter I raised.

The smoke started to rise. And i didn’t take off my headphones still. I pretended to hear people saying how sorry they were, bowed my head, and murmured a thank you for coming to every mouth that moved.

I stood there, looking at the smoke filling the sky, The Afters in my ears, remembering a conversation I had with my mother a long time ago at the same cemetery I was cremating her. We were at someone else’s funeral and she told me that some time before her father died, she was here at this very same place with a friend to pay respects to someone else who had passed away. She had wondered then, to whose funeral would she have to go for next (my memory is a bit cloudy here. Or she had hoped she wouldn’t have to visit this cemetery anytime soon). She told me how shocked she was that the next funeral she was at was her father’s. Ever since she told me this story, I’ve been secretly muttering a hope/prayer whenever I visit the Mahaiyawa Cemetry: Please dont let me come here for my parents’ funerals till a long, long time has passed. It’s like i leave a little voice note for the cemetery.

I stood there waiting for thaththa to finish speaking to the remaiming guests. When it was time to get into the car, I was tempted to share this story with thaththa and nanga, but i changed my mind. Inside the car, i kept looking at the only parent I’ve left. Should I say it? I didn’t this time. And we drove back home, the three of us now.

A letter to my uncle

Hi Sudeep maama, how are you? I have lots of thoughts in my head. But most of the time, unlike before, im finding it hard to jot down or even speak them. I used to write a lot: I would write little poems or sometimes just go on writing exactly how im feeling. Lately, I think, since amma passed away, i haven’t been able to write. I think about writing how im feeling, but each time i try, i feel blocked. Even this is difficult for me. But i want to talk to you and tell you how i feel. I miss amma. I miss her so much. I was so close to her. I think the right word is ‘attached.’ I used to think i would fall apart if i were to live without her. Every day, for as long as i can remember, she has been everything to me. I would tell her everything about what’s happening in my life: about what I learned at uni, about my friends, about the boys I dated, about my classroom experiences, about Inuka, about everything – she knew. She listened to me. She was warm, loving, and kind. And she was my friend.

So now, when I walk down the streets in Kandy or walk into the shops we’ve gone together before, or see a bottle or a tub of body lotion she used, or see her favourite drinks and snacks on the shelves at Keells or Arpico, I momentarily feel a sadness that’s light and heavy at the same time. But the strangest thing is, even though she is not here with us, our house isn’t lonely. When nangi and I stay alone occasionally, never have we felt alone. The house feels normal. As if she were still here. Our spirits are normal. We talk about her a lot: About things that she said or did and we would smile or laugh remembering them. Even when I sat on the bed where she lay motionless, while my father and the medic from Suwaseriya turned off the oxygen cylinder, I cried in agony, but softly. That moment of realizing she was gone, if i were to describe the feeling, was overwhelming but oddly enough at the same time, was just that: a moment of loss. I surprised myself that day and on the days that followed after her death about how I just went along with it. I wouldnt say i accepted losing her completely and that I came to terms with it fully. Maybe i did to a certain extent, but im carrying around with me a tiny world in which she’s still living. Because if I were completely recovered from amma’s passing, maama, i wouldn’t still see her the way I do in my dreams. i also probably wouldn’t see losing my father and even my sister too. I used to see such dreams before amma passed awa,  but theyweren’t frequent,  but I’d wake up from them with a piercing pain in my chest. Now, though they aren’t constant, I’d wake up from them with pain, but a pain that doesn’t hurt me as much – if that makes any sense? It hurts, but i wake up from the dream as if it were a matter of fact. That agony i felt when i saw amma on the bed with her eyes closed but her face and chest still warm, ceased bit by bit and turned into strength, i guess, and i dont fucking know how. Then that strength ceased bit by bit and turned into agony again. And on and on it goes. I’ve never thought of myself as a strong person, but I found a strength i didn’t know i had on the day you left us, amma. But it comes and goes.

Maama, like I said, when she was alive and well, there have been moments where I’ve woken up from terrible dreams about losing her, and I would wake up crying with gut wrenching chest pains. When I would tell her how I saw her dead in my dreams, she consoled me oftentimes telling me, “ah akki, it’s just a dream. Dont worry, I will live a long life. I know my strength.”

Ive been dressing well, eating good food, spending quality time with thaththi, nangi, Ted, Jo, and Toot, working out, going out with Inuka, and just living as though she isn’t really gone. Why is that? I thought i would fall apart and turn into a mess. I thought i would fall sick! But look at me; I’m alright. Isn’t that strange? I dont know how, but if this is what people call strength, then maybe it is. But there’s not a single day that passes without her in my mind. She’s always in my mind, and though i feel sad, my being just okay outweighs my sadness most of the time. Is my strength the result of what she taught me when she was alive? “Akki, let go,” she would tell me, “Dont hold on to things.” “But amma, i want to confront the person who hurt me, i want to tell her that she hurt me,” I’d say in protest. And she would just smile and shake her head and tell me to learn to even let that go. It didn’t matter to her who or what hurt her. She was so quick to overlook others’ offences to the point that sometimes it would annoy me. It annoyed me when she smiled genuinely and talked with people who have been mean or insulting to her. But now, I’m in awe of the person she was and the lessons she taught me. How patient she was, how understanding, and how selfless – it was unnatural! But that is who she was. She was an angel sent down to earth to help me become a little more like her. So maybe that’s why im not too broken down as i thought i would have been without her. I tell myself she was relieved of all the suffering she quietly went through. And i also know she wouldn’t be born again. So, im thinking, her spirit is just happily floating around in this universe as positive cosmic energy. She taught me what i need to do to achieve peace of mind like she did. That’s the goal, she said: to not be raging, but calm.

But when im alone in my room, i remember the hospital nights, i remember how much you struggled to sleep, how many pills you had to take, how many injections you had to endure. I also remember walking along those hospital corridors holding your hand, thinking about the day when all this will be over and you will be healed again. Though that day never came, the best thing that was meant to happen happened. You’re free, amma. And now watch me as i struggle to follow in your footsteps.

I remember every single day since the day we went to the Peradeniya Teaching Hospital for the biopsy. I remember how your face looked as you sat in the doctor’s office terrified of having an injection pierce your neck to get a sample of the nodules they suspected. I only saw one side of your face, and you looked worried. But i also remember thinking, my mother is beautiful. An hour or so later, you came out smiling and thanking the doctor who with great kindness and care didn’t even make you feel the injection going in. After that, at Apeksha Hospital Maharagama, I remember waiting with you outside the clinic while Harsha maama went to speak with the doctors. I remember you enjoying your diabetic resource milk with a bit of coffee. I remember the strength you regained by drinking those tiny nutritional drinks sent by Nirmala nandi and Sudeep maama. I remember the little platters of different food items we arranged for you when you began to lose your appetite because of chemo. I remember how, even when you were sick and you were the one who needed every bit of care, you’d still worry over us. Every single day of those four short months, i remember, amma.

I remember your loving smile. Your smile remained the same even when you were sick. Do you remember, amma? That i had a habit of randomly hugging you tightly long before you fell sick? I’d just come out of nowhere and just hug you and stay like that for a bit. And youd hold me softly. I remember your warmth and your fragrance to this day. And im so glad i hugged you like that. And I’ll live in these memories till it’s my time to leave.

Written on the 21st of July 2023.

August 2nd 2023

Hey Amma,

It’s been three months. All I think about is you. I always keep thinking about or trying to remember what we were doing every single day in the last year before you fell sick. Right about now, around the 2nd of August, we were just raising and taking care of 8 puppies. You made them makeshift little playpens using our bookshelves and dining chairs and cardboard boxes.

I sometimes stop and stare into yours and thaththa’s bedroom. I also stare as if I was in a trance at the room where you sewed our clothes. I stare hard until I force my mind to see you there, in a soft floral dress, munching on some nuts and stitching our dresses and t-shirts and shortening thaththa’s trousers. Then you’d look up and see me standing near the stairs and smile your beautiful, loving, cheeky smile at me. I remember the conversations we had about your childhood. Stories about my two uncles and of my grandfather whom I never met but knew through the stories you told me. Those stories you shared with me and the memories I have of you and us will keep me company till I breathe my last. You know Amma, I forcefully stare at the dining table too or the garden chairs picturing you in my head. I yearn for you that much, Amma. But I know, though you suffered in silence without breathing a fraction of how difficult it must have been for you, God/Universe took you because it was meant to be the best decision for you. So, every day, every moment when I force myself to see you, I’m going to force my mind to convince my heart that you’re safe now. It’s funny, this feeling I have living in me since the 2nd of May: I miss you dearly, but I don’t feel lonely or abandoned. You taught me how to navigate this life – what I exactly need to do to live in peace. But I’m far from coming even close to that state. And now you’re gone, but the staring wouldn’t stop. It has to, at some point, but for now I will keep staring into emptiness longing to see you sitting in the sewing room or at our dining table, looking at me with your big, beautiful, kind eyes, cheekily smiling like how you used to whenever I asked you if you wanted some tea, and the answer to that question was always, always a yes.

She is not gone yet. Because I am living with her in a world where she is still breathing. February 7th was the 3rd day we spent at Suwasewana after she got admitted on the 5th around 2 am because she kept saying she couldn’t breathe and the number blinking on the small oxygen meter attached to her finger was dropping rapidly. We tried many things that night: took her inhalers, used fan therapy, and even applied some stinking ayuruvedic oil one of her uncles had given her for her asthma a long time ago. She remembered it and asked me to find that bottle in her sewing room, and I did. I still remember its smell (I never liked that smell) and how i applied that oil on her chest and kept caressing slowly. I think she knew it wouldn’t work but I think she must have been desperate to breath with ease. I called Daphne nanda and told her how the heart rate section of the oxygen meter kept dropping to 30s and 40s. That’s when nandi asked us to get amma’s reports from Apeksha and come straight to Suwasewana. I cant remember whether it was the 7th or the 8th or the 9th of February that my father broke the news to me that amma might not make it. I can’t remember the day but i remember feeling excruciating pain that I had never felt before. I came out of the room 815 and sobbed uncontrollably. Thaththa couldn’t come out of the room to comfort me because he had to stay with amma. Nangi didn’t know at the time so I just sat there and cried and the only picture that forced itself on my mind was our home. Imaginative, painful thoughts kept intruding all at once – how will being in amma’s room feel, how will being in the kitchen or the hall or any part of our house feel without her? I cried silently in that corridor. In that blur I felt the hands of two or three nurses and attendants on my shoulders and hands. They didn’t say anything; I’m sure it must have been a common sight for them.

So, yeah, I’m still living in a world where you were alive this time of the year in 2023, but the truth is it doesn’t give me a sense of comfort or joy, just a bit of a weird feeling of happiness/contentment from a passing thought reminding me how it felt to have your beautiful face look at me. I’m not wishing for your life to have continued. I’m just still in shock about what happened, how we faced it, and how we are facing it still. I know we will have a May 2nd this year too. I don’t know if the feeling would ever end. Fun fact: I don’t want it to. Writing about it is getting easier now. These feelings should get easier over time too, but I doubt they will ever go away.

Help me remember

Amma, Thaththa and Inuka caught me several times crying looking at the pictures of you when you were sick a few days after the funeral and asked me not to do that – that it’s not healthy and so, to delete the pictures of when you were sick. ‘That is rational,’ the rational fraction of my brain agreed and I deleted most of them as far as I could scroll down and stopped. Those were photos of you when we were at Apeksha and Suwasewana, when you lay crouched forward because the cancer was spreading its roots in your lungs and so your lungs were giving in one bit at a time. They were photos of the oxygen machine whenever we panicked if something was amiss, they were photos of your post-surgery slit throat, pictures of your painful-to-look-at sleeping positions, of your gradually thinning body, of your suddenly aged skin, of your tired looking eyes out of which we could only imagine the pain you must have felt even though you didn’t complain once. All of these pictures were taken to send to Harsha maama and Daphne nanda every time your blood oxygen dropped, every time your breathing got a little more difficult than it had been, every time we wanted to show how well you were sleeping (when miraculously there were a few nights where you slept soundly (hoping still that you did) with oxygen support and prescribed morphine.)

Among these were photos of your sweet, soft hair whenever I combed your hair and massaged your head. Now I wish I had done that a lot more times than I did, amma. In these pictures, though painful to look at, we lived, amma. We accepted, we loved, we lived. But now, I sometimes struggle to accept that you’re gone. It is like my brain sometimes goes, “hey what happened?” And I start to feel alone, left out, like this whole thing wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that you had to go so soon. So, do you know what I did amma? I scavenged for those pictures of you when you were sick that I deleted because Thaththa and Inuka convinced me to. I searched through all the WhatsApp messages I had sent to maamas and nandis for help and for updates and downloaded back every one I could find. And I broke down crying again looking at them. They reminded me why you had to go, why it was better for you to go when you did, and that if you had stayed without a miracle cure, you would have suffered more and suffered silently like you did. I cant believe how you were so, so good, amma – whether it’s even humanly possible- the way you lived. How a beautiful person like you could exist. And how this had to happen to you.

Help me remember. I want to remember. So I need those pictures to look at no matter how heartbreaking they are, my darling amma. So, don’t be sad when I break down like that when I’m alone, I’m just remembering so I could convince my brain why it is better this way. I’m not stupid, I wouldn’t ever wish to prolong your life. It is true that your loss seems unfair: It’s unfair for us, thaththa, nanga, and me, but for you, it was a blessing, amma. I know that. But sometimes, like I said, I need some convincing. I love you. I will grieve your loss till I take my last breath, amma, like you grieved your father’s your whole life beginning from the same age as I was when I lost you: end of 30.

*I was told by a few people I love very much to start writing again. I wrote a lot when amma was sick, and I posted some of them on my Instagram profile. But since we lost her, I haven’t been able to write about her or how I was feeling. Whenever I tried to write, my whole body rejected it. It felt too much, too heavy, and seeing my feelings written felt too real, and I avoided it. It has been eight months and two weeks since you’ve been gone.

Written on the 11th of January 2024.

Review of Apeksha Hospital Maharagama, Sri Lanka

My mother stayed at Maharagama Apeksha Hospital for 10 days at Ward 27. We are all still coming into terms with my mother’s illness; it is disheartening and shocking. And turning the vehicle into “Apeksha Hospital Road” gave me a sudden ache in my heart. Once amma was admitted to Ward 27 in the Razavi building, however, what we saw and experienced gave us all a sense of comfort and security and somewhat lessened the desolating feelings our family shared. Truth be told, my mother was stunned at the first-rate care provided by the nurses and doctors who visited the ward. The comfort provided for the patients was striking. Everything from the moment of admission to the ward, till amma was prepped and sent for surgery, and post-surgery care were nothing like you would expect, especially considering the current economic and political state of our country. For a moment there, we wondered how such a healthcare providing facility existed in Sri Lanka (turns out Apeksha Hospital is the largest cancer hospital in South Asia!).

My mother’s surgeon was Dr. Kanishka De Silva. Prior to the surgery, he requested several tests and scans to be done (all of which were done free of charge at the hospital). Our family is forever grateful for his diligent care and service. We are also grateful to Dr. Rupa Kannangara, who was the radiologist who did amma’s scans. While doing one of amma’s scans, she had told amma that Dr. Kanishka De Silva’s hands are more sensitive than these scanning machines when it comes to identifying and locating where the cancer cells were in amma’s body. Imagine that! And imagine what would happen to our ordinary Sri Lankan people if doctors such as these were to migrate and leave this country for good, all because of selfish politicians’ mismanagement of our country?

The attention to detail by both amma’s doctors and nurses was astounding. Amma’s anaesthetists, Dr. Chandani and Dr. Bulankulama, also went out of their way to make sure amma was alright before being discharged from the hospital. Amma was taken care of by Dr. Malinga and several other doctors whose names I can’t remember now, but their faces I would never forget.

The nurses at Ward 27 were kind, efficient, and so good at what they did/do. Their care extended 24/7, on shift basis. In our ward, there was a four year old little boy who was being treated. He didn’t seem to just have his own mother looking after him, but a host of nurses who looked after him with so much love as if they were his mothers too. While it is true that our country is running out of vital medicines, and regardless of that, the human-touch provided by these nurses had/has a healing effect that no drug can fully provide. The bulk of the healing power needed for patients is yielded through the relationships formed among doctors, nurses, attendants, and the patients. Seeing such a place makes you believe that God is real – that God is dwelling inside of every service provider in that building/hospital.

The attendants’ services were crucial for the smooth functioning of the ward. They were friendly and duty-concious. After dinner, my mother, sister, and I would have brief conversations with them. They were pleasant. We also spoke with other patients. We shared our stories of how we first felt the lumps, what to expect after surgery, and where we were from. We might not see each other again, but those fleeting but impactful conversations will have a hold in our memories.

On the day my mother was discharged, my sister and I were given a prescription card to go get the medicine from the pharmacy located inside the hospital. We took some money with us too expecting a bill at the end. It took us awhile to realize that none of those who came to get drugs exchanged money for the drugs. The drugs were given free of charge! We were filled with a sense of awe and gratitude as well as shock because we were so used to paying for our medicines at every pharmacy we’ve stepped into. The pharmacists were very efficient too.

My mother is yet to recover and we will have to come to Apeksha several times. In the meantime, we are praying for a miracle that’ll cure her because she is the angel in our family. Until then, we are and we will be making peace with the cells that are harming my mother.

Finally, we are forever grateful for Ahmed Tea for donating this 7 storey building for the Sri Lankan public ❤️

Classroom Eclipse

I carry the world in thoughts,
Though I mustn’t, I know, I should stop.
It’s not always very pleasant,
It’s unsteady, vast, it’s sometimes like broken glass.

Back then, I knew little of the alternate world
I have created for myself,
Where my whirlwind of thoughts ceases to exist, ceases to threaten,
And loses its grip on my heart.

It is when I walk into this place
With excitement to share,
To learn and unlearn, and never to command, but ally my experience with theirs
To find that mutual ground,
I find myself forgetting the world and its bewildering sounds.

Though it’s not always steady
When I tread along this path,
I have caught myself feeling uneasy,
Sick to the stomach, and doubts creeping about.

If only they knew of the fear
That cripples and weighs my heart
When I have to speak and take the lead,
Often times I dread the part.

But it’s my little haven
I’ve unwittingly created for myself,
That in the moment I walk into it,
The rest of the world departs.


-Sudakshi