Parvati Anant Narayan (18:26)
Are you okay, miss? The flight attendant asks and I can see why he's concerned. We're six hours into a 14 hour plane ride and in all that time I haven't stopped crying. Great big gulping sobs like I can't catch a breath. In fact, I hadn't stopped crying since my sister's phone call the night before asking me to get on that plane. A few months. A couple of Months prior, my 15 year old son had traveled to India from the United States, where we live, to visit my sister, his aunt and his grandparents. A couple of weeks before, he had started to feel really unwell. So some doctor's visits and tests revealed that my 15 year old son had lymphoma. He had cancer. And so I bid goodbye to to my husband and my daughter back home, not knowing when I would see them again and I boarded that plane. When the plane landed, my sister came out to meet me at the airport and right away we went to the hospital and there were further tests and further visits with the doctors. And the doctors they sat me down and they said it would not be possible or safe for my son at that moment to travel back to the United States safely for treatment. He had two liters of fluid that surrounded his heart and so the plane journey would not be advisable. They said that he would need surgery and chemotherapy right away and they would make the call after that. The doctors, they also asked if it would be possible for my son and I to move closer to the hospital because the commute would be quite hard on him. During treatments, I was utterly overwhelmed. How was I going to get through this? I thought to myself, how were we going to get through this? The next week, my son and I went to look at an apartment. The apartment was on the seventh floor of a 14 story building that was next to the hospital. And as we walked in, I took in the white tiled floors and the kitchen that felt a little bit too small. And my son, he threw open all the doors to the closets and the rooms, trying to decide which bedroom would be his. And as I stood there, I thought to myself, please God, please let this be a place of healing for us. I watched as my son slid the balcony door open in the apartment. And he turned around and he looked at me and he goes, ma, come see. So I go over to see what he's pointing at. And I look down and down from the balcony. On the grounds of this apartment complex is a great big, beautiful blue pool. And he looks at me and he says, ma, it's a swimming pool. You can finally learn how to swim. A little background here. As a child, I never really learned how to swim. As a teenager, I tried to take lessons and I managed to make it through too. The first time, the first day we went in and the instructor said to all of us who were there for the lessons, well, today I'm going to teach you how to float. Now, floating, that isn't swimming. You don't go anywhere. But it's useful, so let's start there. And so the instructor taught us to climb into the water. And I learned how to kick my feet off the floor of the pool and keep my back perfectly straight. My face was outside the water and I could look around, I could take a breath, and I thought to myself, well, this isn't so bad. So I went back the next day. On the second day, the instructor said, well, today we're going to actually start learning how to swim. And to do that, you have to put your face inside the water. I climbed into the pool and walked over to the edge and started to put my face under the water as the instructor told us to. And I was utterly overwhelmed. Water started rushing up my nose and into my ears and my eyes open, but I couldn't see two feet in front of me. And, you know, started to panic. My feet start lifting off the floor of the pool as my head goes in and I'm losing control and I think, hell, no. And I splashed out of that pool and I never went back. So I'd never really Learned how to swim. And here we were on the balcony, and my son looks up at me and he says, ma, promise me that if we rent this apartment that you'll go down there and swim every single day. Here he was, going through what was probably the most difficult thing in his life, and he was there taking care of me. So I looked up at him and I said, okay. I promise you I will. I'll go to that pool every single day. But you promised me that when I look up from the pool, you'll be sitting up here at this balcony so I can keep my eyes on you. He said, it's a deal. So we rented this apartment. And over the next few days, our routine went something like this. Every afternoon, my son would say, ma, it's time for you to go swim. And I'd say, okay. And I'd pick up my towel and I'd take the elevator down to the ground floor, walk out to the pool, put my towel aside, climb into the water. I'd kick my feet back the way I remembered how to, and I'd keep my back perfectly straight, and I'd train my eyes right over to that balcony. And my son would be sitting up there, and he'd wave down at me, and I'd wave up at him. And in this way, our days followed one after another until it was time for surgery. On the day of the surgery, the day before the surgery, I went to the hospital and had to go down into a basement area where there was a counter, and there was a medical assistant sitting there. And the medical assistant, he handed me a clipboard of forms. And he said, you'll need these when you go in to see the surgeon. So I took the forms with me, and I walked into the surgeon's office. And as I sat there, the surgeon started to explain to me what they would have to do during the surgery. The surgeon said he would need to insert a needle into the skin around my son's heart or the tissue around my son's heart to get the fluid out. And he said that anytime you do something like that, something invasive, like putting a needle into the heart, that there's a very real chance that the heart might just stop. There was a chance that my son might die. He wanted me to sign those forms to show him that I understood that these were the risks. I didn't understand. My mind went completely blank, and a great fear seized me. And I picked up those forms and shook my signature across the pages, and I handed the clipboard back to him. The next day, My son was wheeled in for surgery, and surgery went fine. He came out fine, and right away they had him go into chemotherapy. The chemotherapy ward had a series of beds, and there was a chair next to each bed. And while my son was there in his bed, I would sit next to him and hold his hand. And as the chemotherapy kind of flowed into his veins through the tubes in his arms, I'd sit there for hours holding his hand, never leaving his side. The nurses, they'd fuss at me, and they'd say, you have to go eat or drink something. Go to the cafeteria. And I resented them for this, because the only real control I had was to be there by my son's side. I did go to the cafeteria. I probably ate things and drank something. I don't really quite remember. I do remember getting these small cups of milky tea that were scaldingly hot. And they probably burned the roof of my mouth. But I gulped them down, and I'd rush right back to my son's side again. A few weeks of chemotherapy treatments, you know, later, the doctor said to us that now was a period of waiting and watching to see if my son had responded well enough for us to be able to go back home and presume treatments here. The doctor said we could be discharged from the hospital. So we went back to the apartment. As we walked into the apartment, I supported my son, who was feeling rather weak. We walked into his bedroom, and I helped him into his bed and pulled the covers over him and turned over and started to close the blinds so he could catch some sleep. And as I turned to leave the bedroom, I heard him say in a kind of quieter voice, ma. I turned around, and he said, we're back at the apartment. It's time for you to go swim. Yes. Yes, I said, I will. I picked up my towel and turned around and took that elevator like I had so many times before. Went to the bottom floor and walked over to the pool. I placed my towel by the side of the pool and climbed into the water. I kicked my feet back and kept my back straight. My head came out of the water and my eyes trained immediately over to that balcony. But my son wasn't sitting up there. Of course he's not up there, I thought. He's in bed. But a great wave of panic and fear seemed to rush over me. And the tears, they started flowing out the sides of my eyes and back into the water. And I thought to myself, what if? What if one day I look up at that balcony and never see my son again? I Climbed out of that pool that day and went back upstairs to my son. And we waited a couple more weeks to see how he would do. And the doctors, they met us and they said, he's well enough to take the flight back home. You can go back home to the United States and continue his treatments there. So we got on the plane to come back home and it was very nearly summer again. And summer rolled around and we were invited to go to a poolside. And my son and I went over and I changed into my bathing suit. And as I walked out, I saw him sitting on a lounge chair by the side of the pool, scrolling through his phone. And I looked at him. I started to climb into the water. It felt really cool. Climbed up over my waist and to my chest. And turning this time, I put my face under the water. Water started to rush up my nose and into my ears. I started to feel that familiar panic. I couldn't see two feet in front of me. My feet started to climb up off the ground and I felt the loss of control. But this time, this time I kicked. I kicked and I plunged my arms out of that pool and into the water and I propelled myself forward. A few strokes later, I came up sputtering and gasping. And I heard loud laughter. And I looked over and it was my son sitting by the side of the pool, just laughing his head off. He looked at me and he said, ma, look, you're doing it. You're swimming. Thank you.
