That pretty much summarizes how my winter break went.....it was as sudden, short lived and stressful as being hit by a car....which actually happened today by the way.....little old lady comes driving out of a parking lot without seeing a stop sign....and wham.....hits me....luckily she wasn't going fast or anything so I just have a sore knee after all the drama.
My break was horrible.....it was short as hell.....two weeks is barely any time to go back for a break......I spent a good day getting there and another one coming back....then a couple of days getting over jet lag and I was already down to single digits in terms of the number of proper days I had left to spend at home.....but the shortness of the break was the least of my troubles.
My grandmother was in hospital for almost 40 days.....she broke her right shoulder and the right side of her hip and she was 88 years old so that went badly......she was bedridden and in hospital for a while....so a day after I got back to Delhi.....I went down to Chennai to visit her.....that was a positively shocking experience because the last time I saw her mild Alzheimer's was setting in.....but due to the trauma she'd been thru she had pretty much completely lost her senses.....she couldnt recognize people or faces or voices....and she just kept mumbling stuff.....every 20 seconds she'd open her eyes while sleeping and yell out something random....and this went on all day and night.....it was almost like her brain had short circuited....like one half didnt know that it was supposed to be asleep so even in her sleep she kept yelling.....the only positive response was when she reacted to pain when the physiotherapist tried moving her arm......the doctors gave up and said there was nothing more that could be done so she was brought home and kept in 24 hour nursing care.....by now christmas had passed and my parents wanted to head back home for new years so a couple of days before new years I got back to Delhi.....worried about my grandma....but was reassured by the doctor that she'll go on for at least another month or more.
The worst moment of my break was right after the new year began.....the clock struck midnight....I wished all my favorite people for new year (or at least attempted to considering the phone network went down because of the sheer volume of people calling and messaging each other).....I sent out the last of my new years messages and went to bed....was barely asleep 10 minutes.....when we got a call from Chennai.....my grandmother had passed away.....she'd caught pneumonia and it proved fatal.......so what followed was a mad rush to the airport to catch the first plane out and spending three whirlwind days in chennai while all the rituals and formalities were completed.....
I took it upon myself to look after my grandfather who was shattered by the whole thing......he'd known my grandmother since she was 8 and they'd been married 65 years......and it was hard....watching him feel helpless lost and depressed......i can't even fathom the emptiness he must still be feeling.....if it weren't for college I might have stayed with him for a while longer.....but the stupidly short break proved how short it is again.....I had barely any clue what was going on and before i knew it I was on the plane and I had reached Ann Arbor......
So thats what happened over my winter break.....and now a new semester begins and hopefully it goes well....
