Thread by @dadamkhan

A brief reflection on Covid, mortality and why you should hang on to your loved ones:

Covid does you the favour of dulling your memory. I carry proof of the virus – battle scars, as it were – in aching joints and muscles. I still feel it in the left side of my chest.

I feel it in the form of a certain exhaustion in my body and mind; a particular numbness which has dulled and blunted the senses, a slowness, an unawareness of the passage of time.

If it was just myself, though, it would have been an inconvenience at worst and probably might have even freed up some time for introspection. Coming to terms with the mortality of my parents (and watching them come to terms with it) was a different story altogether.

Now that I have a few moments to myself (and just a few, before I get back to work) I’m trying to fully comprehend what has happened in the past few weeks and how it has felt like losing a decade of my life.

Somewhere inside, I’m used to seeing the image of my mother unwell. Since her cancer, it has been an endless series of struggles. It pains me still. But to see my father – the image of strength – so old, helpless, lost, frail – was something I could have never prepared for.

I felt my heart sink the moment he walked through my door, slowly putting one foot in front of the other, pausing to give me a blank stare for one too many seconds before recognising me. Having no comprehension (at least none that lasted) of his location, his condition.

An inability to perform mundane tasks without utter confusion. To see him, half his size, sunken face, wrinkled skin, unable to help himself let alone anyone else – and yet, his deeply ingrained notions of masculinity not allowing him to accept any of it.

And then the actual threat: the virus eating away at their insides and mine. The very real fear – even if unsaid by all – of them not surviving this. A creeping possibility in the middle of the night – listening out for the faint sound of a cough.

Jumping out of bed to stand in their doorway and watch them sleep. It wasn’t until later that I was brave enough to admit to myself why I stood in that doorway many times a day and night. I was watching them breathe.

The most terrified part of me staring at their outline just to make sure I could still see it rising and falling. Mildly reassured, I would go back before returning again.

Sometimes at night, I would walk into their rooms and quietly slip the oximeter onto a finger.

Seeing it drop far into the 80s, I would pacify myself by remembering what the doctor said: “watch out for the symptoms”. And since there were no apparent ones, I’d uneasily put aside the fear and go back to bed.

There were the nights I would sit in a chair by my mother’s bed with a book I would never read. Instead, I watched her sleep with the oxygen tubes in her nose and the hissing sound of a cylinder.

Somewhere amidst all of this, I lost track of my own virus – slowly fading away while I was distracted. If I look back at these few weeks even now, I remember time in glimpses instead of any cohesive narrative.

My father pulling up the chair and footstool to sit at the open balcony door in the sunlight. The newspaper he could never read. My mother slouching in bed watching Hum TV dramas on her phone. Him walking very slowly in the park before asking to sit down for a while.

The gentle vapour of the nebuliser. The “do not enter” sign on the kitchen door. Foldable tables. Panadol. The doctor’s WhatsApp display picture. The oxygen cylinder. My sister’s face shield. Yakhni. The blue digits on the oximeter. My father’s black shawl and pakol.

Dropping them off to Amangarh was no easy task. Two people, so independently capable their entire lives, suddenly with drooping cheeks and fearful eyes. It broke my heart. I know it broke theirs.

And yet – unlike many others – we’ve somehow been fortunate enough to make it through this. The virus has torn through our bodies and left. Its marks will stay for longer, as will the trauma of these few weeks.

But I thank God for it all. My family, friends, my partner without whom I would be lost. Thankful to you for reading this right now. Go find the ones you love and hold on to them. If anything matters, it is that.

The real toll of Covid is not the statistics. It's the children standing in doorways watching their parents breathe. It's the six feet between you and a hug from your loved ones.