Twenty Five Years That Never Came
And then, I touched my father’s cold body. The cold did not feel real at first. It felt like the metal railings of the hospital bed, like the freezing hospital air that never changes no matter who lives or dies inside those walls. But not him. Never him.
I stood there staring at his chest wrapped beneath thick white padding under the pale blue hospital gown. The bandages looked cruel. Just hours ago, they represented hope. Open heart surgery, the doctors had said. Difficult, but possible. We held onto every hopeful word like drowning people hold onto air. “He’s fighting.” “He’ll recover slowly.” “Pray for him.” And we did. God knows we did.
The night before his death, neither my mother nor I slept. Even now, I cannot explain why.
The house had become unbearably silent, the kind of silence that arrives before tragedy does. My mother sat awake pretending she was not worried. Mothers do that. They fold clothes that do not need folding, rearrange things unnecessarily, stare at their phones every few minutes as if refusing to miss a call could somehow save someone’s life.
And I sat before the mandir in our house. The akhand jyoti burned steadily before the gods while incense smoke curled slowly into the darkness above me. I remember folding my hands again and again until my fingers hurt. I prayed like a frightened child trying to negotiate with destiny.
Please save him. Take anything else. Just let him come home.
I sat there for hours watching the flame. Somehow, its steadiness terrified me. The entire world inside me was shaking, but that tiny light remained calm.
Then my phone rang.
My uncle, husband of my aunt (father’s sister).
He was the fighter of the family, the kind of man who never allowed emotions to overpower responsibility. While others waited helplessly for updates, he had gone straight to the hospital despite being outstation. Later, I would learn how he cornered the doctor outside the ICU and demanded the truth.
“Tell me clearly. Is he alive at all or are you people only keeping the family waiting?”
Nobody else had the courage to ask that question, but he did. Because some people fight by refusing to look away from the truth.
When I answered his call that night, there was silence first. Heavy silence. The kind people create when they are trying to arrange painful words carefully enough so they do not destroy you instantly.
Then he quietly said, “Stay mentally prepared.”
I still remember how my heartbeat changed after hearing those words. Until that moment, I still believed my father would somehow return home. Weak maybe. Tired maybe. But alive.
My uncle’s voice cracked something inside me that night. Fear entered me slowly after that call. Cold. Silent. Permanent.
I looked back toward the mandir after hanging up. The akhand jyoti was still burning. So I sat there again and prayed harder than before, almost desperately now, as if faith could still pull my father back from wherever he was slipping away.
But somewhere inside that hospital room, surrounded by machines and fading sounds, my father was already leaving us.
Morning arrived without feeling like morning. The sky outside had brightened, but our house still felt trapped in darkness. My mother and I had not slept even for a minute.
Then the phone rang again.
Hospital.
The moment I saw the screen, my body went numb.
I answered with trembling hands. The voice on the other side spoke carefully, professionally, the way people speak when they have delivered the same pain too many times before.
“I’m sorry…”
That was the only part I truly heard. Everything else became noise.
My father was gone.
Just like that. No final goodbye. No miracle. No last conversation.
I remember turning toward my mother immediately after the call ended. She was standing near the doorway looking at me, searching my face for answers I did not know how to give. And in that moment, I understood how quickly childhood can end. Because suddenly I had to find a way to tell my mother that the man she built her life around no longer existed in this world.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
How does a son say those words?
Before I could speak, her phone rang too. The hospital was calling her now.
I watched her answer, and then I watched her break. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Worse. She shattered silently. One hand covered her mouth while the other clutched the edge of the wall beside her as if the earth beneath her feet had suddenly disappeared. I had never seen my mother look small before that day, and I had never felt more helpless.
I wanted to cry like a child. I wanted someone older to hold me and tell me what to do next. But suddenly relatives were calling, neighbours were arriving, arrangements had to be made, papers had to be signed, and I was too young to carry so many emotions at once.
I was grieving my father while trying to protect my mother from the same grief. I was angry at God while standing before the same mandir where I had prayed all night. I was still a son, but somewhere inside me, I was also becoming the man of the house.
The ride to the hospital felt endless.
My mother and I rushed out almost mechanically after the call and boarded a Parnasree mini bus because nothing else was immediately available. I still remember the conductor shouting for passengers, the smell of diesel mixing with the damp morning air, people talking normally around us while my entire world had already collapsed.
I sat beside my mother in silence while she stared out the window without really seeing anything.
The city outside looked painfully ordinary. Shops opening. People buying tea. Traffic building slowly.
How could the world continue so casually when my father had just left it forever?
By the time we reached the hospital, a few extended family members were already there. Everything felt gloomy. Heavy. Even the walls seemed colder.
My aunt (father’s sister) was there. The moment she saw me, her face crumpled in a way I will never forget.
People spoke softly around us, some crying openly, some avoiding eye contact because nobody knows what to say to a son who has just lost his father.
But all of it became distant noise the moment I walked toward the cabin where they had kept him. I remember my footsteps slowing near the door because somewhere deep inside, as long as I had not seen him yet, there was still room for denial.
But then I entered the room.
And there he was.
My father.
Wrapped entirely in white cloth. Packed up so tightly it no longer looked like the man who used to walk beside me. The tubes had been removed from his mouth. The machines were gone. The doctors were gone too. All that remained was silence and a body lying still beneath hospital lights.
I remember staring at him, unable to connect this motionless figure with the father I knew.
This was the same man who laughed loudly at home, the same man who scolded me for sleeping late, the same man who would suddenly grab my wrist or shoulder just to startle me and laugh at my reaction afterward.
So when I moved closer and touched him, a part of me genuinely believed he would suddenly grab my hand again. Just one last time. A final jumpscare. A cruel joke. Anything.
But he did not move.
His body was freezing cold. Not cool. Not sleeping. Cold in a way no living person should ever be.
I remember touching his arm through the cloth and immediately pulling back slightly because my mind could not accept that temperature belonging to my father. His hands were tied inside the wrapping, and somehow that hurt me even more.
I slowly touched his forehead after that and whispered the only word my heart knew in that moment.
“Baba…”
Nothing. No response. No movement. Just silence.
Then my mother went upstairs to see him. Even today, I cannot clearly remember what she said in that moment. Maybe grief erased it from my memory to protect me.
I only remember her crying. Not ordinary crying. Not loud public mourning.
It was something deeper than that. Something private. Something that belonged only between a wife and her husband of almost twenty four years.
My parents never had the kind of love that needed constant display before others. Their relationship was deeply personal, quiet in its own way. They fought sometimes, laughed sometimes, worried about money, discussed family problems, and built an entire life together through ordinary days nobody else noticed.
My parents’ relationship was never ordinary in the eyes of society either.
My mother was eighteen years younger than my father. Even today, when I think about it, I realize how unusual that must have looked to people around them back then. It was a huge age gap. The kind that invites whispers, opinions, judgement, and endless questions from society.
But love has its own way of choosing people.
And sometimes love arrives without caring about age, logic, approval, or timing.
They ran away from home and chose each other despite everything standing against them. Maybe people judged them. Maybe people doubted whether their marriage would survive. Maybe some thought it was impossible for two people with such an age difference to truly understand one another.
But they proved everyone wrong quietly.
Because beyond the age gap, beyond society’s opinions, beyond the struggles, they built a real life together. A private world of routines, sacrifices, arguments, affection, responsibilities, and companionship that lasted almost twenty four years.
As their son, I grew up seeing them not as two people separated by age, but simply as my parents.
I never questioned it. Never even thought deeply about it while growing up.
To me, they were just Ma and Baba.
And maybe that is why I can never truly explain what I saw in my mother’s eyes that day. Because how do you describe the grief of a woman who lost the man she ran away from home for? The man she chose against the world. The father of her child. Her safest place.
One of the most painful things about losing my father was that ours was never the kind of relationship people write perfect stories about.
We were not best friends. We did not sit for hours sharing emotions openly. We argued sometimes. We misunderstood each other often. There were phases where silence between us lasted longer than conversations.
He belonged to a generation of fathers who believed love was responsibility first and expression later. So our relationship existed somewhere in between. Not distant. Not deeply expressive. Just unfinished.
But despite everything, I looked up to him more than anyone else in my life.
Maybe I never said it aloud enough. Maybe sons rarely do.
But my father was my first definition of what a man looked like. The way he carried responsibilities silently. The way he showed up for work year after year without complaining. The way people respected him wherever he went. The way he kept the family standing even during difficult times.
There were moments when I got irritated by him too. His scoldings. His stubbornness. His old school mentality sometimes.
At that age, it felt controlling.
Only after losing him did I understand that was his way of loving me.
Fathers like him did not say “I love you” directly. They asked whether your phone was charged. They waited awake till you returned home safely. They complained about expenses while secretly making sacrifices you never noticed.
And maybe that is why his death left such a strange emptiness inside me. Because there were still so many conversations left unfinished between us.
And maybe the biggest unfinished dream of all was my parents’ twenty fifth anniversary.
2018 was supposed to be the twenty fourth year of their marriage.
My parents had run away from home and married each other against circumstances and family opposition. But because everything happened suddenly back then, they never officially registered their marriage legally.
And somewhere inside my head, I had already planned something for the next year.
Their silver jubilee.
I wanted to organize a grand celebration for them. But more than that, I wanted to call a marriage registrar home and finally legalize their marriage properly on their twenty fifth anniversary.
I imagined my father pretending to act uninterested while secretly enjoying the attention. My mother smiling shyly. Relatives laughing about how they ran away together years ago.
But life had already made its decision before I could fulfill any of it.
January 16, 2018 arrived first.
And suddenly every plan I had for them became meaningless overnight.
There would be no silver jubilee together. No celebration. No legal paperwork gifted proudly into my father’s hands.
Nothing.
Just absence.
After the hospital finally completed all the formalities, reality became painfully practical. Forms had to be signed. Documents had to be checked. Bills had to be cleared.
And somehow, at an age when I still needed my father beside me, I was the one signing papers to release his dead body.
We had already arranged for a dead body carrier vehicle to bring him home. But before leaving, some of my father’s coworkers approached us.
My father had worked there for thirty two years, and they did not want him to leave without returning to his workplace one last time.
So before bringing him home, we took his mortal remains to the office premises so his coworkers could pay their final respects.
That moment affected me deeply because suddenly I realized how many years of his life existed outside my understanding.
Thirty two years. An entire lifetime of attendance, responsibilities, friendships, stress, tea breaks, ordinary routines and sacrifices, all ending in silence.
Afterward, we finally brought him home.
And throughout the road journey, only one thought kept repeating inside my head again and again:
How will I look into my mother’s eyes now?
She had already gone home earlier with some family members because everyone insisted she rest for a while, though she did not want to leave the hospital at all.
When we finally reached home, neighbours and relatives had already gathered outside.
Then my mother did something that broke me in a way words still fail to explain.
She took out the exact same dhoti and kurta my father had worn the day they ran away from their homes to get married all those years ago. The same clothes that once belonged to the beginning of their life together were now being used at its end.
Over the white cloth the hospital had wrapped around his body, she carefully made him wear that dhoti and kurta before we left for the cremation ground.
I remember standing there watching her hands tremble while adjusting his clothes one last time.
Maybe that was her final act of love.
Or maybe it was her way of reminding herself that before hospitals, before death, before grief, there was once a young man she had chosen over everything else.
Then came one of the hardest moments of my life.
Three of my closest friends stood beside me, along with a few family members, and together we carried my father’s dead body.
All my life, my father had carried me. And now, for the last time, I was carrying him instead.
Earlier that day, I had called my three best friends only to tell them one sentence:
“My father is gone.”
And they came. Without questions. Without excuses. They stayed beside me through everything.
Sometimes real friendship is just silent presence.
The cremation ground felt unreal. Dramatic. Drastic. Gloomy.
The smell of smoke and grief filled the air.
My father’s body was placed in line beside other dead bodies already waiting for cremation. That sight shattered something inside me because until then, despite everything, I was still seeing him as my father, not as a body waiting for its turn at a crematorium.
The priest arrived and began explaining the rituals. Then he looked at me and said, “The son has to do it.”
I circled around my father’s body as instructed.
Then came the moment I will never forget.
The priest handed me a burning stick and told me to perform the agni kriya, the final duty of a son according to Sanatan Dharma.
But all I could think was, “How can I touch fire to my father’s face? He was my father. What if it hurts him?”
And then reality hit me harder than ever before.
He was already gone.
My hands trembled while holding the fire, but somehow I did what I was asked to do because I was his son.
Then came the electric furnace.
We carefully placed my father’s body onto the conveyor track leading toward the furnace. The crematorium worker moved toward the lever, and panic exploded inside me because until then, despite everything, my father was still physically there. I could still see him.
But once that lever was pulled, there would be nothing left.
The worker pulled it.
The conveyor moved.
And my father slowly disappeared into the furnace.
I shouted.
Others shouted too.
Somebody held me as my entire body shook violently watching the furnace doors close forever.
And just like that, my father was gone. Physically gone. Once and for all.
After some time, the priest called us to collect his ashes. We followed one of the crematorium workers downstairs into an underground chamber beneath the crematorium, and there I saw it.
A pile of ash. Grey. Fragile. Silent.
And someone told me, “That is your father.”
I remember staring blankly because my mind refused to connect the two things together.
How could an entire person become this?
The worker carefully collected the ashes for us and handed them over, asking for money before doing so, and somehow even that moment stayed with me.
Then we left for the Ganga ghat.
It was January 16. A freezing Kolkata night.
I immersed my father’s ashes into the Ganga slowly and watched the water carry him away into darkness. Then I stepped into the river myself. The cold was unbearable.
After taking the ceremonial dip, I had to leave behind the coloured clothes I had worn throughout the entire day, the same clothes I wore while seeing my father for the last time, the same clothes I wore at the crematorium.
I left them there at the ghat and changed into plain white ceremonial mourning clothes that I had to wear for the next thirteen days.
And somehow, that moment changed something inside me because it felt like I was leaving behind my old self too.
When we returned home afterward, I saw my mother sitting surrounded by women trying to console her.
And for the first time in my life, I saw her without sindoor, without sankha pola, without any sign that she was still a married woman.
Everything was gone.
She sat there wearing a plain white saree while others sat beside her trying to comfort her.
And I could not stop staring.
All my life, I had only known her as my father’s wife, my mother, and suddenly, within a single day, every symbol of that life had disappeared.
Seeing my father’s body broke me. Watching him disappear into the furnace shattered me. But seeing my mother sitting there in white mourning clothes, that was when reality truly hit me the hardest.
Because for the first time, death no longer felt temporary. It became permanent. Visible. Irreversible.
And somewhere between the sleepless night before my father’s death, the akhand jyoti burning before the mandir, my uncle’s warning call, the freezing touch of my father’s forehead, the unfinished silver jubilee that never came, my mother dressing my father in the same clothes he wore when they ran away to begin their life together, the furnace doors closing forever, my friends standing silently beside me, my father dissolving into the Ganga, and my mother sitting in white without sindoor, my entire life changed forever.
Because a son never truly stops needing his father. He only learns how to continue living after the world has already taken him away.