#30 When Moon Shines Life

“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” ~~ Mary Anne Radmacher

May 27, 2024

“Looks like she is born again.”

These were the precious life-affirmative words that my saviour Dr Anupama Singh said on the morning of 27^th May 2021. Previous day on her morning visit, she had asked me if I needed something. My response left those around feeling astonished or confused. Definitely curious, as I came to know in the days to follow. I knew my wish was impossible to fulfil and silly enough to even contemplate. But I also knew in my heart the quiet hope that gave voice to my barely functioning vocal cords –

“Can I please see today’s super moon?”

I could see Dr Anupama’s warmly smiling eyes from behind the mask in her heavy and suffocating full-body PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) suit. I heard her gentle caring laugh before she left.

That warm contact was more than enough for a patient who for over a month, had been resiliently nudging herself breath-by-breath towards survival. I had been feeling starved of hope until Dr Anupama Singh took over my case. Until just ten days before, only thing I so desperately wanted was to feel hope in the voice or demeanour of someone, anyone – in the team attending on me. They took all the necessary care. That said, in my critical state when life cried for life from breath-to-breath, the only thing my naturally resilient mind and heart desperately hoped for was just one human voice that could echo my hope and resilience. None. But how could they! What they were themselves going through is something that no faint-hearted and covid-safe person can even imagine, leave alone understand and empathise.

The healers were themselves in trauma. And they themselves needed healing. Before I take you (in the next post) inside the PPE-choked hearts and minds of some of the attending doctors, paramedics, nursing and other staff, whose duty hours just stretched and stretched, and disappeared into the trauma-struck Covid wards and ICU – let me take you back to my moon story.

Rather than feeling embarrassed over making an impossible wish as I heard everyone joke about, I was actually feeling sad at missing full moon – something very special for me. Moon in all its moods and phases, and the night sky gazing are among the very few passions that I have secretly saved for myself in a life punctuated by adversity, trauma and loss. And this was a special full moon – a super moon coinciding with lunar eclipse and Buddha Purnima. It was supposedly going to be blood red in colour in places where lunar eclipse was in effect. Not Delhi where I am based. But the super moon of Buddha Purnima was treasure enough. There seemed little, if not nil, likelihood that I would have survived to see the next (and last) super moon of 2021 that was to rise on 24^th June – the birthday of my elder son Utkarsh who in the September of 2014 had merged with and become eternity.

I was sad, in ways and at levels that I cannot easily put in words. The day nonetheless lingered on as it could in the ever buzzing yet so desolate ICU. My non-invasive ventilator kept pushing in oxygen to my battered lungs. My only pastime in ICU was to keep smiling at whoever I could exchange an eye-contact with, including the fellow patient(s) on those rare occasions when the separating curtain was left ajar by some staff. So what if none of us could see each others’ faces - staff’s shrouded in their protection mask and patients’ in their life saving oxygen masks. Morning, day, evening, night, days and dates – all seemed to have merged into each other. The only way I kept myself oriented was by chanting in my mind, and scribbling whatever few words my wobbly hands managed to pour on a letter pad that hospital staff had given me to communicate. I noted the date and time (matching with the evening round of injections and medicines) as 26^th May 2021, 8 pm.

All of a sudden, a bunch of people arrived and began preparing to shift me to wheel-chair. Most of these voices wore caution and anxiety. But couple of them that I could recognise were unusually chirpy. I couldn’t make sense of their jargon-laden communication. But the cheer was so very feel-able. I assumed that perhaps I was being shifted from ICU to ward. Really! How! I felt a warm surge of hope and joy caress my spine. But when I heard a nurse enquire about arrangements upon my return – my joy turned into disappointment. And confusion.

Soon I was wheeled to what I later learnt was an emergency exit passage between the two ICU wings. It had a tiny gloomy window that looked as if hung on the wall. Lo and behold, once opened it transformed into the window to paradise. The flower super moon of the Buddha Purnima on the 26^th of May 2021 was waiting to greet me in its full grandeur. Perched elegantly on a massive tree just outside the window, it seemed to be inviting me to spread my arm and touch it. I did touch it – with my eyes, and I filled my parched and covid-abrased lungs with all of its rich milky light.

Picture self-clicked by Neena’s Covid-struck quivering hands, on a phone graciously lent by a duty nurse

Surreal and splendid. What marvel was unfolding before my eyes!

The puzzled me was in tears of wonder, disbelief, joy and longing. My mind had a thousand questions. But my heart was in awe and reverence. I was fully in surrender to the wondrous unfolding of Mother Nature’s magnificence. My heart knew the un-knowable way what only a heart can know - that the super moon of 26^th of May 2021 had come down to kiss the earth that night, just so it could shine life on my dying life.

I did not get a wink of sleep that night. Yet that was perhaps the only restful night in my nearly one and a half month long stay in the hospital, for most part in the ICU. I was ready to return to life, with life.

Next morning, Dr Anupama Singh stamped my quiet hope with her sure belief and resonant voice –

“Looks like she is born again.”

Circling forward to today, 27^th May 2024 – as I complete three years into my new life, I reminisce with awe, affection and gratitude many warm and loving memories I made and collected during my first (two more since then) and critical encounter with Covid. I hope to someday give voice and expression to those special memories. Today, though, is meant to celebrate my Covid saviours, and all the saviours of humanity and humankind through the dark and dreadful Covid era that still continues to register its trying presence.

I dedicate today’s post to Dr Anupama Singh, Dr Priyanka, Dr Vikram Shah, all the attending doctors, nurses, paramedics, lab technicians, young intern Dr Amardeep, support sister Parkashi, the admin staff, and so many more whose names I do not know. Also the fellow patients with whom my eyes occasionally exchanged light of life. And of-course to my dear friend - MOON.

As a ‘Grief & Growth’ Specialist; ‘Leadership, Resilience, Wellbeing & Transitions’ Coach and Trainer; ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ Expert; and Therapeutic Writing Coach and facilitator – I am here to help you navigate your own grief journey with resilience and meaning; and/or learn to counsel and companion others on a similar path. I work with individuals, families, groups and organizations. Please reach me at growwithneena@gmail.com if you need (whether in personal, professional or organizational context) counselling, coaching, therapy or training in resilience, wellbeing, grief healing, post-traumatic growth, meaning and purpose clarity, and appreciative inquiry. And please share forward my coordinates with those in similar need.

Hope you find solace, support and strength in my books Grief ~ Growth ~ Grace – A Sacred Pilgrimage and A Mother’s Cry .. A Mother’s Celebration. Please read yourself, and recommend andgift to someone on a grief journey, and to the grief practitioners. I would be happy and grateful to read your review on Amazon & Goodreads. And if you happen to make a social media post about my books &/or newsletter, please do tag me. Warm gratitude.

Stay tuned to continue learning more about the complex multi-layered phenomenon of grief, and my six-phase GROWTH Mandala model. And to cultivate, deepen and spread #GriefWisdom and #GriefSensitivity.

Above all, allow the Moon of hope and resilience to shine in the dark night of despair and trauma.

Hoping my post resonates with you, please mark a LIKE, leave a COMMENT

Grief-Wise with Neena Verma

Discussion about this post