Choice

I have always found it difficult to make a choice. Even the simplest of choices.

Choices are subjective. Personally, I believe decisions involving oneself are easier than making choices that impact others. See, I could make the biggest mistake of my life but I would still have the ability to limit the disaster to just myself and not others.

But what if something you wished for had detrimental effects on someone else's life? The academic success you longed for could have come in the form of a scholarship which someone else might have needed more. Your asking for wealth could have come at the cost of a loved one who left you their wealth. You'd think these scenarios sound extreme, that such hypothetical scenarios could never apply to you, until one day, you make a decision that emotionally cripples you for years to come. Had I known this, would I have made the same choice to not see my grandfather when I knew he would be passing away?

I remember when my grandfather first fell ill, as grandparents unfortunately inevitably do at some point in life. I chose to see him because I had full belief he would recover. My idol. The one person in my universe who could never do wrong. But then the frequency of my grandad falling ill gradually increased. What was strange was that all this did was further consolidate the idea that my grandfather would just keep coming back. He'd be alright no matter what storm hit him. The man was made of steel.

On one such day that my brain had registered as a usual day at the hospital, my grandfather stopped getting better and instead started to get worse. The decline in health was so fast it made my head spin. It was almost New Years, and there were parties and loud music everywhere; I could not have hated celebrations more in all my life. Amidst all the music and partying, I cried into my prayer mat as I made a choice.

I thought of the ventilator and how much pain such a beautiful person was going through just to give the rest of us the comfort of only the mere possibility of having him alive. With a heavy heart, I sobbed onto my prayer mat as I begged to have him stop suffering from pain any longer; something very different from the usual, "Please heal him," because deep down I knew this gem of a person's time was up. I then made the choice to not see him in his final moments.

You may think this was incredibly selfish. It was. However, for the first time, what seemed like an awful choice made sense. Not going into the ICU allowed others to go in in my place. People who needed to be with the wonderful human in his final moments. People who could give him the strength he needed rather than my emotional mess of a person bawling over his current state.

What did I get out of it? A memory of my idol to haunt me for the rest of my life, where his last words to me in his healthy state were that he would come back.

The only consolation, if you ask me, is that in my heart, he never left.

Bushra Zaman likes books, art, and only being contacted by email. Contact her at bushrazaman31@yahoo.com