I did not talk about Valentine's day!

But experienced the happiness that comes with it.

I visited my parents around 10 pm on Valentine's day at their apartment which is a stone throw's distance from my apartment in Chennai. I am here since the middle of November, 2013 after both my parents were admitted to a hospital- my mother with an abscess and complications of her chronic illnesses and my dad with a broken hip. They are back home, my dad recovering and my mother stable. My mother 's dementia has worsened but my dad who had no problems with remembering exhibited signs of early onset dementia. Recent memory took a hit after the accident at home. Now I manage their day today life. I have six people employed to care for two. A caregiver exclusively to care for my mom and cook, a maid, two male nurses on six hour shifts during day, a female nurse during night and a chauffeur who is available during day to rush them to a nearby hospital incase of an emergency.

I visit them every day sometimes two to three times a day as their behavior is similar to that of a child's. I have to encourage my dad to eat or drink, prod to make him walk for an extra few minutes with a walker, wake up my mother who falls asleep during breakfast, lunch and dinner and while offering prayers to the deities, to come out from the rest room telling her that she has been their for nearly an hour, listening to her irrelevant conversations that I have become accustomed to, accepting that she is never going to get better and telling myself that I can't get frustrated. When my father started to say that the check bounced which was given to the Landlord, I panicked and called him only to find that he had no problems encashing the check. He started to fudge stating that he ate three idlis during breakfast when he had one, drank ensure when he didn’t and questioned whether the physiotherapist came in the morning when he did. My brothers’ called without fail and had to repeat the same question to our mother multiple times only to get five different answers but not the one pertaining to their question.

I visit to listen to the complaints of the caregivers, whether it is my mother’s ridiculous accusations or the politics that they differ and the complaints against each other. They want me to stay there 24 hours but to maintain my sanity, I chose not to. But I visit, pushing myself and telling myself that this is a noble purpose and I am blessed to care for them. I am awakened by the night nurse’s phone call around 9 am as I have difficulty falling asleep till 3 am. I look at the name and number and ignore it. I wake up somedays thinking that this day is going to be good and this too shall pass. But it is the same each and everyday. Friends who clustered around me on my short trips have a job and a family to attend to. I learn’t to live in reality. Watching movies, news about Indian politics and music are a part of the equation of my day today life. Making myself a cup of tea, smoking a cigarette, dragging myself to have a shower has become the norm. I get calls from my family in USA and I find myself repeating- there is nothing new other than to bitch. So I stopped. The times I left the neighborhood is to go to temples to believe that my faith still exists and a few times to go to the banks to be pushed to the limit to encash the money my father had and I have, only to be told that my signature sample did not match the one I signed 10 years ago and that it would be a lot easier to withdraw cash from my father’s account if he had come even after telling them that he was in bed with a broken hip.

And on Valentine's day, as I made the visit around 10 pm, I walked into my parents bed room. I saw my mother lying next to my dad, her fingers clasping his and sleeping with a smile on her face. My dad is lying next to her with his eyes closed, facing the ceiling, with a scarf around his head and covered with two sheets. I was sweating. The night nurse and the caregiver for my mother came along. They saw what I saw. For once they did not bitch. They admired the closeness these two old couple had between them after 64 years of married life. They smiled and told to themselves or for me to hear that it is strange but beautiful to see these two interact and wondered whether anyone can still be in love at this age. They forgot for a moment that they had reasons to whine which I am accustomed to, but gave accolades that was even hard for me to give after all the frustrations one is exposed to. I let them sleep, patting on the shoulders of the caregivers as I walked towards the elevators, with words hard to come by, tears swelling and about to fall and glad that I could close the doors before anyone could notice the tears falling down my cheeks. I saw my dad’s valentine give a real meaning to the day. I couldn’t have done it better.