when the other shoe drops

It’s the call that I’m always subconsciously braced for…and simultaneously hope I’ll never get (but know I will…eventually). The call that I hope will be a long time in coming.

“Melissa, I need you to leave whatever room you are in, go some place alone”

And I know.

This is the call.

This is the call I’ve been dreading.

This is the call I’ve been bracing for.

This is the call that I have known could come at any moment.

The other shoe just dropped.

The only question is, “who”

“what are the details this time”

Because I know the bottom just fell out.

I don’t know the details. Yet.

My mind races. Who. What. How?

I immediately think of the woman who was having minor surgery…but I already got the call that she was out of surgery. How could that situation have taken a turn for the worse.

Who?!

What?!

Mind racing.

And then Sarah fills in the details.

Gita. She died. It was sudden. She was at work on Tuesday. She died on Wednesday afternoon.

On Monday I sat near her in the office, and she was chatting and being her sassy self…cracking me (and herself) up.

I sit down on the stairs of the prevention unit. And try to absorb what I just heard – but I can’t.

“is she already cremated?!”

“am I going to make it back to Kolkata in time?!”

“have we already missed it?” (it takes 2 hrs, which could be too long. Things move fast)

“she’s dead?!?!”

I cannot absorb this information.

There are some women that, for various reasons, I think will be the next women to die. I have been stealing my heart for when they die.

But Gita – she wasn’t anywhere near the top of that list. She wasn’t even on the list.

So I get to the train station. And sit on the train.

I will it to go faster.

I try to will myself back to Kolkata faster – but I can’t.

All I can do is sit on that train, and hope it will get me home fast enough.

All I can do is sit on the train, and try to absorb the reality that someone I care out just died – totally out of the blue.

I get back to Kolkata, And of course, it is another time to “hurry up and wait.” It is taking awhile to get the body released from the hospital. We sit at Sari Bari. I talk with some of the women.

Eventually, we walk around the corner to her house, and wait for her body to come. Some of the women are sassy, and tell off the guys who congregate to stare (we are, afterall, in the red light area).

And the rituals begin. Reality begins to settle in.

For some reason it is seeing her feet that gets me. Her feet, of all things are so familiar.

We walk down to the burning ghats, where bodies are cremated.

And there is a long line.

It is going to be a long night.

We wait.

We drink tea.

We wait some more.

Sarah summarized it well by saying, “on days like this I feel like I have mental turrets. And I keep it inside, but mentally I have turrets” – and I agree. I mostly manage to keep it inside, but the internal monologue…the questions. The frustration. The loss of appropriate words…they just cycle as we sit and wait.

against all logic, we just can’t leave. It doesn’t matter how late it is. It doesn’t matter that we could leave and come back in a couple hours. We sit. We wait. We keep vigil.

It’s how we roll.

This is one of the things I love about Sari Bari. We stay until it is finished.

We say goodbye.

It makes your head spin.

Laughing with her on Tuesday, and Thursday watching her body be cremated.

I hate going to the burning ghats.

I hate it.

another loss.

And today, I think I’m doing okay…until I’m not. (I think I should have learned this about myself by now). I think I’m okay until I’m yelling at a (mostly) innocent bystander…or until I start talking with the Kalighat ladies about death/burial/cremation and I end up crying trying to explain some of the questions that this brings to the surface in me…and finally sumaraize by saying, “I’m not afraid, I’m just sad.”

So you let your head spin.

Cause there’s nothing else to do.

You run for a while on the hamster wheel in your mind.

You let the questions simply exist (because they are…and they don’t have answers)

and somehow find a place to rest…sending Gita off with a patchwork of blessings,

“May you go out in joy, and be led forth in peace.”

“May the peace, that largely escaped you in this life, guard you in the next.”

“See ya on the other side.”