Most Indians do die at home with their families, but mainly without medical support. A recent study found that, of the 5.4 million people a year in India who need palliative care, only 1% receive it. Crucially, therefore, Santosh couldn't benefit from the kinds of pain medications that kept Brenda comfortable during her last days. The experiences of our American and Indian families differed in other ways. Brenda's doctors and nurses were open and frank about her prospects and didn't urge extraordinary measures to keep her nominally alive; Santosh's were not. Neither of our families is wealthy. Although we both did have the financial means necessary to care for our mothers, Brenda also benefited greatly from Medicare. India offered no such help for Santosh.
And one more factor: Brenda and all of us descended from her are White, so our efforts to make her last days good ones were not disrupted by systemic racism, as they are for so many in this country.
There's a saying in India: jispe beet-tee hai woh he janata hai (only the one who's going through it knows). Santosh used that with Priti once -- speaking not of her own suffering but of someone else's. In Santosh's final weeks, old Bollywood songs would play each evening on the TV in her bedroom. Four years later, while we stood around Brenda's bed at dusk as she breathed her last, a song Priti had heard in Santosh's room the very evening she died played over and over in her head. It was from the 1971 film Anand, about a doctor who struggles to decide between keeping patients alive and accepting death when it's inevitable:
"Kahin Door Jab Din Dhal Jaaye"
Kahin dur jab din dhal jaye
Sanjh ki dulhan badan churaye
Chupke se aaye
Mere khayalon ke aangan mein
Koi sapnon ke deep jalaye
(Somewhere far away when the day sets
The bride of dusk steals the body
She comes quietly
In the courtyard of my thoughts
Someone lights up lamps of dreams)
Kabhi yoon he jab hui bhojal saansen
Bhar aye baithe baithe jab yoon he ankhen
Kabhi machal ke pyaar se chal ke
Chhue koi mujhe par nazar na aye
Nazar na aye
Kahin dur"
(Sometimes just like that the breath becomes heavy
When my eyes well up just sitting there
Then, fluttering, moving with love
Someone, touches me, but I cannot see her
I cannot see her
Somewhere far away")
Rest in peace, Brenda, Santosh, and every other mother who gave so much and suffered so greatly.
Copyright 2023 Stan Cox and Priti Cox
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