The Day I Lost My Brother...

It was a Wednesday morning in the last week of May 2019 that I received a phone call, informing me that my brother is met with a serious road accident and admitted to the hospital nearby. My son and I immediately left for the hospital, where he was admitted, in a taxi. The hospital was approximately 50 kilometers away from my home and it took two hours to reach there.

Both of our cell phones were ringing continuously during our journey and my son replied to every call, we received, as I was not at all in a position to lift the phone and talk. We thought he would be recovering in the hospital, but by the time we reached the hospital, he had already breathed his last.

It was really a shock to all of us in the family. I could not console his family immediately, who were also travelling with him. I wondered, what I should have told them at that critical moment to make them believe what was real facts. It was not easy to presume that everything in life depends on destiny and was impossible for them, to believe the facts, as it is. They too were in a terrible shock, shattered completely and it took months to control the situation, to some extent.

After the cremation of the body and completion of other rituals as per the custom, my family tried our best to make all of the family members to accept the facts and the necessity to move ahead in life, despite what had happened. All the responsibility to run a family with two children was thrust upon my sister-in-law, all of a sudden. Though all her family members also supported her during the crisis, our entire family too had given her full support to live with the situation, gracefully.

I contacted the employer of my brother and arranged to get her all the dues. All the bank accounts wherein nomination was already registered, were made operative, by giving the relevant documents. We helped her to transfer the funds lying in his accounts, to the new accounts opened in the name of his spouse and children. A few valid insurance policies held by the deceased, helped the family to tide over the immediate financial crisis, to a certain extent. 

My sister-in-law and children were forced to shift her residence to her mother’s home, as she was a house-wife. Their elder son got admitted to the college for higher studies and the younger one to the school and their life goes on. After my mentoring for days, their family slowly tried to accept the facts and to forget the past, as there is a long life, to live on.

Many times it is very difficult to just forget the past fully, because it is a permanent loss to the affected family, if somebody dear to them, just vanishes from the scene, one day, because human minds are tuned to behave in that fashion.

But it is also not ideal to remain idle, in the remaining part of life, only thinking about the past, because everybody has a role to play one’s role in life, till death.

Life is very precious; one has to remain alive, till the last breath. Loss of life of a person, whether be a relative or a friend, is always a loss to the dear ones.

I cannot really forget that day I lost my brother because he was too precious to me.

But his sweet memories still remain in my heart forever, which will never get faded, with the passage of time.