I didn’t have to see you face-to-face. It was powerful. It was emboldening.

My train of thought was not disrupted by your grimaces or your forehead gestures. It was peaceful.

Your heavy breathing substituted the lines around your open eyes and the wrinkles on your face. They always spoke louder to me than your words and I was glad to hear you breathing overseeing you inhale to exhale a reproach.

A glimpse of your eyes and I had seen your lack of acceptance of me lying heavily under. Your closed ones now a negation of that. A calm, soothing washes over me. I am fearless.

As the words begin to come out of my mouth I hear a sharp hiss from the tubes that form the extension of your mouth and I feel like the wind gutted out of my lungs. It takes me back to the time you slapped me for not kneeling in front of the Gods right. I did not know what right or wrong kneeling was, I was seven, you never showed me. “Perhaps if you had been born a Hindu you would know. It is in our blood and we know.”

As you lie there cold, pale and deathlike holding onto the last remnants of life, afraid to fall into the deep glow of the bottomless chasm that is opened in front of you, I wonder whether, no I hope you can hear me.

I always respected you. The family tree established thus demands respect out of me unto the likes of you. But did you know that I respected you out of the vines of these connections as you gave me the one gem of my life: my father. I wouldn’t have come to be the person I am today if it wasn’t for your son teaching me to be everything you are not. You failed, you despised and you loathed with all your being so that I could be taught to be nothing like you and for that and only that I accept you as the grandmother. I shudder to think that if not for you, I could (maybe) look like you on my deathbed someday—white and alone.

Now you move ever so slightly; uneasy and agitated as you are, you can only shrug. Your eyes like a mouse trapped under a carpet look for an escape into the safe creases of reproach and disgust

in the “othering” hole of me. I never could be one of the family, could never be your granddaughter, I could never have pure Shaiva blood coursing through my veins. I was adulterated, adulterated by the blood of Christ in me. In fear of contaminating you and your mission of living life at one of the hands of Shiva, you cast me out. In the great war of Shiva vs Christ that you were fighting in, you pitted me against my cousins, your son against his brothers, your son against his wife. In fighting for God, you embodied the fight, becoming the symbol and vessel of wrath and anger. You took it upon yourself to be his agent in delivering his plagues and famines of ignorance and disregard.

And yet no one confronted you, no one stood against you, no one bothered enough to call you out. This cowardice turned into power, resignation made way for bestiality. In your sole focus of decontamination, you destroyed your humanity. In attaching these frills to your beliefs, you ignored your decaying body and here you are today.

Hopeless, helpless and dying, has Angel Karma come to carry you on her wings? Do you feel prepared and ready to fulfill your destiny? I sure hope so. Otherwise, my battle scars will have nothing to show for. The mutiny entailed will save none, not even you.

I wish I had it in me to say that I forgive you, that as you pass into the beyond so will all your memories, but these memories have a personality of its own now. Knocking, slapping and shoving it sneaks an attack when least expected, with a mind of its own your influence continues to resonate in my everyday life. Maybe if I can disown you right at this moment as you have me all my life I could release these memories’ iron grip on me. Forgiveness, something I’m incapable of conjuring. Hate, my ready safety blanket of blame.

The monitor flat lines. I hear the long beep and as the sound drags along, her eyes spring open to catch mine for one split second. Fear, shock and vulnerability, she exhales loud, a sigh of relief and finality as the doctors rush in to resuscitate her. As they declare the time of her death I see that I’ve turned 24. For 24 years I was held captive, a hostage held still by her eyes. For 24 years I was restrained, afraid to move, afraid to act on my instincts. I had trained myself to repress those first inclinations. As they roll her out I don’t feel relieved or a sense of calm, I feel distressed, a kindled spirit igniting near me as I meet my father’s eyes to grasp that for the first time in 24 years, he and I are orphans.