Call Me:

My father’s death was a case of hospital negligence. There is no other way to look at it. Ever since he passed, loved ones, friends and family have tried to explain it to me in different ways. They tell me it was time for him to go. They tell me to have faith in the plans of God. They ask me to pray for peace of mind. They would have me stop questioning the way he went, the unnecessary pain, the unnecessary death of the best friend I had in the world. I’m too young, they tell each other, to understand God’s ways. I’m fighting ghosts. I’m in shock. Its been too traumatic. It was so unexpected. Its how I’m coping. Its a defense mechanism. They keep telling me how I feel. But for all these weeks, as the flood of mourners receded to a trickle of close friends and silent servants, I’ve been saying the same thing to anybody who will listen. It was hospital negligence. Somebody should be punished for my father’s death. It was not his time to go. We had breakfast that morning in the garden. My egg was too runny so we exchanged our plates because he never had any real egg preference. Afterwards he had his oatmeal and a fly landed in his bowl. He scooped it out with his spoon and I scrunched up my nose. It was still alive, splashing around in his spoonful of oatmeal and he killed it because he didn’t like things suffering. He read his paper and read a small excerpt out loud to me about Pakistan Railways. I half listened. I didn’t care at all about Pakistan Railways. Our dogs lay in the grass. Their eyes were closed in the sun. It was an exquisite morning. Nothing happened, except that I had a whole hour for breakfast with my father.
I left for school and when I got home I was told my mother had taken him to the hospital. I felt a pang in my heart. I don’t know why. I knew somehow that it wasn’t just a headache or backache or a twisted ankle. I knew it was his heart. I knew because the morning had been too long, too beautiful. A perfect goodbye. The driver took me to the hospital and when I sat by his bed I knew he was already gone. When my mother told me what happened I told her it was medical malpractice. My uncle agreed with me. They’d not asked enough questions, they didn’t have the right doctor there or the appropriate equipment. She was too upset so I didn’t say much, but when the doctor arrived I asked him all the things that were on my mind. He told me not to worry, that my father would Inshallah be fine. I told him he was on a ventilator, his body was no longer breathing on its own, and that he was dead. I could tell from his face, from his skin that he was dead. The doctor put his hand on my shoulder and told me to calm down, and that he would be right back. He didn’t come back. Other doctors came, until finally, the next morning we told them to take my father off the ventilator. Because he didn’t like things suffering. And I didn’t want him to be a fly in a spoon. He was a giant. He should have died like one.
I will not rest until somebody owns up to my father’s death. When enough time has passed, and when it will not torture my mother, I will expose every detail of the hospital and the carelessness of the doctor in charge. Every morning I look for my father in our garden, on the chairs between the sleeping dogs. I miss his voice. I cannot get through a single breakfast without thinking of him, and the last morning we spent together. Even if I had known it was the last, I would have changed nothing about its peace; its calm, ordinary passing. Just another day in the company of my father.

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