February 24, 2025
Thank you for your prayers and healing vibes and thoughts, and for reaching out privately and sharing your experiences — either with knee pain or with dealing with elderly parents. The latter helped me understand the reasons for the choice of prioritizing this visit over self-care. My leg improved gradually; it felt miraculous considering the pain level was so high despite strong painkillers given to me by the ortho. I stopped the physio as I did not feel able to trust her but kept the icing/heating going and today my pain is about level 3 and I am not using any painkillers. I am astonished. The second antibiotic course completed yesterday—Phew! I still cough but it’s not phlegmy and frequent.
And so here I am almost at the end of this trip. The emotional low has shifted, not only because of health improvement but because of a few other things that happened.
I had formulated goals for this trip on my flight. I have only completed the top three, but I am ok with that. Since I am essentially a storyteller I will tell one here.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a short story after a Bombay visit. It was about sisters and a particular dysfunctional pattern they were stuck in. Of course, the pattern came from my relationship with my sister but the other elements of the story are different, including their backgrounds and personalities. I put that story away for long after I wrote it, but it seems like it acted upon me in the mysterious way that journalling or stories, whether read or written, act upon me.
During the visit in January 2024 (though I had forgotten about the story I had written) I noticed the pattern as it began to arise, and I decided to not participate. Dysfunctional relationship patterns between two independent adults require both to participate. I am guessing that this refusal from me was a shock to her that she didn’t know what to do with, and as the days went by our relating felt less authentic and distances began growing in the relationship. I couldn’t leave Bombay quickly enough, and I don’t think I blogged about the trip except in passing after I had returned. I made another trip here in September/October last year too. Before that, my sister and I were arguing a lot on phone calls, but the trip itself did bring us together as we were focused on the best care routines for my mom, which would also not stress my sister out too much. I did blog about that.
But despite this when I returned the relationship distance grew once again and often phone calls were terminated with a sadness that pulled me down for days. I tried to bridge the gap but couldn’t. I deeply hated that and dreaded this trip here. I made those goals on the flight hoping some focus and structure might help with the long, long days here. The top goal was to get back to authentic relating with her, the next was to help her with the prep for the trust and tax documents. The third was to meet a friend who I hadn’t met in a few years. The list went on further, but these were the most pressing ones.
Goal two was worked upon—slow and steady and we have almost completed it. But I had lost hope of achieving goal one and three with my two body dysfunctions. My friend who also struggles with chronic body issues made a huge effort and visited me at home yesterday! What a sweet joyful reunion. She’s the first friend to who I could reveal myself completely to and feel accepted, at a time when I was going through one of the worst crises of my life—even though I had known her only a few months then. A magical, soul connection, and slipping back into that was effortless.
And here I come to the biggest miracle of this trip. Unexpected and so very precious, and I think this too came from that story. I read it again recently and things began clicking and clicking internally.
Until Friday last week, things were thickly fraught and delicately fragile between us. That evening we had argued about the way she handles the house help but underneath that was an argument about what agree and understand meant to her and me. For her, they were the same and disagreeing meant one hadn’t understood the other, so when I disagreed she felt I couldn't understand her and it hurt. My experience was different. I might understand someone and the motivations behind what they desire and what they do but I might not agree with it. She seemed stunned to hear this, but didn’t say anything and we changed the topic.
I had urged my sister to go away for the day with a visiting cousin that Saturday. My sis is a control monster in the home, and I made detailed notes about what and how she wanted me to manage the day. She returned with a huge smile which vanished almost instantly because I had messed up on a couple of things (maybe more but one major one to her). I told her she needed to let go when she was out and trust I would do the best I could. She frowned and went away. I began talking to my cousin, someone I had spent many summers with. She’d spend a month here or I would at her parents’ home. My mom and hers came from a family of nine but they were closest in age and remained close after, even though they married into different cities. We caught up about each other's current lives and reminisced about those summers.
Suddenly my sister returned. Her face washed and hair combed. She gave my cousin her phone and asked for her to take a picture for her. Then she came around my chair and engulfed me in a close embrace. She never initiates hugs. I couldn’t smile for the first picture because I was so dazed. So, my cousin took another and that is and will remain one of the most precious memories of all time for me.
When I look back, I can see the small steps that led us here. I can see that a lot of my changed ways of listening and talking to her came from some written or unwritten parts of that story. What happened completely lifted me out of the mild hopelessness I was feeling and a sweet delight filled up the gaps between us and the holes within me. The story I wrote does not end this way, but I won’t tell you what it is in case you read it someday. And I also know this ‘fragrance’ might not last between us, but require more work later, as all relationships do, but savoring this today is beyond priceless.
I don’t want to say anything beyond this today.
Once again thank you to so many of you for your warm wishes.
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