TW: Death

This is a rant. List of questions I know there isn’t an answer to. Journal of feelings I don’t know names of. Personal. Long. And yours to wonder about as well.

I am a student in the Netherlands.
Weed is legal and beer is cheaper than water here
There are rave parties on weekdays
And getting the right company to go to these is easier
But instead, I sit at home,
Try cooking dal how my mother would
Sip tea and tell my sister on call how
People my age are getting full scholarships and jobs already
My sister works in Dubai
She is an independent earning woman
Who goes out on fancy brunches on her off days
Meets interesting people
And drinks chardonnay only to call mom and say
People my age are getting married and having kids already
We laugh at life,
Compare and complain sometimes,
Pride ourselves on the life choices we have made
And crib sometimes about the hand of cards god has laid.

I remember this one time
When my parents had been to the crematorium four times that week,
Mother was out of clean white kurtas to wear and
My father had forgotten how to smile,
He said
People my age are dying.

And I thought to myself,
How many last rites must this man have helped arrange
For him to know
They will need ghee and milk and honey,
Leaves from the betel plant,
Sandalwood powder and vermilion
And four dried coconuts.
How many friends must he have lost
For him to instantly start making important arrangements and calls,
Take care of all the practical matters
Without even taking a minute to fathom the sad news he has just received
All so that the departed’s family can grieve without having to worry about it.

This man deals with death so mechanically,
I worry that he is not coping with the emotions he is feeling.
But then what do you expect?
How is he supposed to grieve the loss of people he grew up with?
Friends he had his first drink with
Friends who teased him when he first met mumma in college
Friends that brought whiskey in jugs to the hospital when I was born
Friends who arranged his father’s last rites
Friends with whom he had planned to buy a retirement beach house
How do you ever be okay with losing people you planned to grow old with?

I remember when the first of his generation passed away.
It was a cardiac arrest
And my father got the call right after we had had our breakfast
He lost the sensation in his feet, sat down
Confused and shaken, he looked up at us and said
“Daago kari gayo”
He was so mad at his friend for leaving so abruptly
But then as years went on,
More people in his circle fell prey to this thing called time
But I mean, they were only in their 50s
So perhaps they fell prey to destiny, to some weird messed up plan god has in place
And my father stopped getting so shocked and hurt.

My father trims off the parts of him that his friends touched
Every time he says goodbye to one of them
I wonder how many more funerals he has in him
How many more last rites until he has trimmed so much of himself that he is just an hollow carcass with no memories from the years he has lived?

Is this what life has in place for me?
Will I start to complain about people my age getting married in a few years?
And then people my age buying bigger houses?
And then people my age retiring?
And then people my age dying?