Surreal Songs

You told me not to cry, when you were gone.

It was the peak of summer in 2017, and every Saturday my mother woke at the crack of dawn to pick my father up from the railway station. Every Sunday, she returned home at about ten in the night after dropping him off at the same place. 

Sickness and separation persisted into the monsoon of 2017. Every Friday night, my father boarded a train from Bangalore, with just a backpack in hand. Every Monday morning, he got off from a train in Bangalore and went straight to work again. 

The rare occasion came when the family of four was together under the same roof. My mother would cook a rather elaborate lunch, my sister would tell me stories of college, and my father would get to see his dying father, who was housed in the third bedroom of our house. 

Who knew that the word 'hardship' was only just beginning its true colors to us? Who knew that we'd be missing each other for several more years to come? Sure, we make jokes about it, we make plans of running away from the world. Because separation is overwhelming, the feeling is much too strong, that if we were to approach it any other manner than a lighthearted one, we would crumble. 

And maybe I'm close to tears as I'm writing this, and I've surely lost track of what I really wanted to say. You see, life gets in the way of living. That's what my sister said to me one day when I had a similar breakdown right in the middle of online classes. 

Homesickness is a feeling that strikes out of nowhere. One day, everything would be fine, but everything would also feel hollow and meaningless. When you hear a song and it only reminds you of one random day in 2017 when you and your sister walked in on your parents sleeping on the floor, their hands in each other's. 

Life gets in the way of living, and you're never really grateful for what you have until life takes it away from you, right in front of your eyes. 

*****

Lay Me Down by Sam Smith.