“Doctors treat the disease in the body. Nurses administer the treatment to the body and mind. But when nothing works, it is the Ayah that keeps body, mind and soul together.”
As I walked in for my first day at medical college, I read this quote as I entered the premises. The grave of a woman named Grace had it inscribed on it. As a budding medical student, I expected that she must be a famous surgeon or nurse.
But it turned out that Grace was the most popular ayah or attendant in the hospital. She had passed away only three days back, and a lot of people had gathered around her grave to pay their respects. It included a lot of medical students like me. It also included nurses and doctors who had worked with Grace Ayah and shared fond memories. I chanced upon a couple of nurses as they took a seat outside her grave and spoke about Grace Ayah.
“First year?” one of them asked as I hovered around them, hoping to catch their attention.
“Yes Madam,” I said in all earnestness.
“Hall 2,” she said and pointed to a building on the right.
“Yes Madam, at 2 PM,” I said, looking at my watch.
It was only 11.30 AM. Death welcomed me as I entered medical college. It might be a sign for me to learn about it first, before I started learning about life, I thought. I loitered around for a few minutes and saw the two nurses still seated there.
So I asked them, “Who is.. err.. was.. she?” pointing to the grave.
“Grace Ayah, an angel for patients and their families,” one of the nurses said.
The other nurse added, “Especially for the terminally ill.”
“A beacon of compassion, a model of sensitive service. And an icon for the attendant community,” she continued.
“It’s a pity that she had to suffer so much,” the first nurse said.
“Yes, being bedridden and in so much pain for one year with no hope of recovery is excruciating. God was not fair to her towards the end,” the second nurse said.
“What did she suffer from?” I asked.
“Oh, it started with cancer which had spread throughout her body. Then she had a lung disorder a few months back,” the second nurse replied.
“And towards the end, even dementia had set in,” the first nurse added.
“Oh, I am sorry to hear that,” I sympathized with Grace Ayah on her predicament during her last days.
“A lot of people would be sorry to hear that,” the first nurse said. “Well, there’s no justice in this world, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sometimes you wonder what made the Lord make her suffer so much. I am sure a lot of patients and their families would have had only good wishes for Grace. Who would think ill of her, after what she had done for them during their time of suffering? ” the second nurse exclaimed.
“Who can forget that woman with advanced metastatic breast cancer?” she added after a brief pause.
“Oh, what an unfortunate soul she was! After suffering for six years with all kinds of therapies that poor lady was finally sent home. After that, they said only God can save her now!” The first nurse was disconsolate in the memory of an old patient. “Till she met Grace Ayah, God’s angel messenger. She actually saved her from suffering endlessly.”
“Yes of course. I can never forget that woman. She was a bundle of energy when she came to the hospital first for her chemotherapy. But she was a bundle of bare bones when I went to see her with Grace at home,” the second nurse agreed.
“And I am sure you can’t forget that old man who had advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Grace took care of him when even his children had forgotten about him.” She stared into the past and recollected further.
I listened in, all ears. I had heard of all these terms and looked forward to treating these patients as a doctor in the future. But for now, they were overwhelming.
“Alzheimer’s?” I asked. “Do they actually forget everything?” I asked, like the novice that I was.
“Oh Yes. Everything. That man had difficulty even in remembering how to swallow and how to sleep. He had no memory of day or night. And, of course, he had forgotten everything about his children and even who he was,” the first nurse replied.
“Oh that’s bad,” I said and made an awkward movement in my seat with a frown. I could sense hair standing on my forearm with fright upon hearing these sad stories.
“Don’t worry dear,” the nurse said, seeing my discomfort. “You will see all these ill patients over the next few years.”
She then turned to the other nurse and continued their conversation.
“The worst part for all Grace’s patients was the pain they went through towards the end. It was often unbearable. Not only to the patient. But to the family. And even to her,” she said. “She used to tell me often how the shrieks and cries of her patients used to pierce the hearts of their near and dear ones.”
“It takes a lot to take care of such patients,” the other nurse said. “Do you remember that one who had motor neurone disease? For years together, wasn’t it? He kept deteriorating bit by bit. It was heart wrenching,” the other nurse added.
“Yes of course, it is a debilitating illness and that patient suffered so much. If not for Grace, I don’t know how much longer it would have continued. The good Lord sent Grace as his messenger,” the first added.
I thought that all this was a bit too much for me to digest on my first day. And that even before my first class of human anatomy had begun. I told them that I will now leave for Hall 2.
“Good luck my dear,” the first nurse said. “Wish you all the best,” the second nurse said as I started leaving. “We give treatment, but life and death is in the hands of the Almighty. God bless.”
***
I started walking towards Hall 2. That’s when I heard a voice. “Hello, you, there! Wait. Look here. Are you first year?” the loud voice asked.
“Yes Madam,” I looked back and replied. There were a couple of other first year students with her.
“I am the warden for student hostels and Ayah quarters. We need some help,” she said after introducing herself.
“Sure Madam,” I said, and walked towards her.
“Three of you go to Grace Ayah’s room. Here is the key. Fill up all her stuff in this bag. By all, I mean everything that you see there. Leave only the bed and other furniture. I need everything packed in here. Give it to me in staff room #3 before you go to Hall 2 for your orientation. We need to clear the quarters today,” she said.
She gave one of us the keys and I picked up the bag.
“Walk straight down and take the second left. Her room is #13 on the first floor,” she guided us.
The three of us walked as per her directions. “So they use first years for such jobs?” one of the other two asked.
“Looks like it. Future doctors clearing Ayah rooms? I hope it doesn’t get any worse than this,” the other said, while I smiled.
By the time we introduced ourselves and shared a laugh, we had reached the Ayah quarters. We went to the first floor. It was easy to spot Grace Ayah’s room.
It had a photograph of Grace Ayah outside. She had a calm, smiling face and looked in her fifties. There were lots of flowers, bouquets, condolence notes and gifts lying on the floor in front of it. We manoeuvred our way being careful not to step on any of them, opened the door and walked inside.
It was a dinghy, dark room with the stench of old air. It had a solitary bed lying in a corner. There was an old, dusty fan on the ceiling that made an eerie creaky sound when I switched it on. That apart, the room had a small two-door cupboard and a table with an old chair. There were dust layers on the floor and near the window.
We opened the window and it creaked like nobody had opened it for a long time. Grace Ayah lived there only when not attending to patients at home is what we gathered. No one else had entered the room for days, or months.
I opened the cupboard and found a few clothes in it. There were some uniforms and some plain clothes. We packed them in the bag that the warden gave us. We picked up the bedsheets, some clothes lying around outside and stuffed them inside.
The bathroom was basic. It had some used soap and shampoo bottles along with some combs and toiletries. We dumped them all into the bag.
“There is a notebook here,” yelled one of us when I was in the bathroom. “Should we take it?” she asked.
“Yes, we should. The warden said pack everything you see there, except furniture,” I replied. “By the way, what’s in it?” I asked and came out of the bathroom.
“It’s got some patient names and details,” she opened the notebook and told me. “It’s listed in tabular format. It says name of patient, terminal disease, doctor, prescription, date..” she read it out aloud.
I pulled the notebook from her hand and had a look. “Seems like a record of Grace Ayah’s patients,” I said. “Cancer, Dementia, Lung disorders, Alzheimer’s, Motor Neurone..”
The third one pulled the book from my hand and had a look.
“Yes, it’s a patient record,” she said. “Wow, so many of them. Some of them are from ten years back. She was an angel. Looking after so many terminally ill patients takes something,” she added.
“Yeah, she was definitely made of stern stuff. An iron lady, I am sure. Just hearing about the patients and their suffering gave me shivers today,” I remarked.
We kept the notebook in the bag.
I noticed some small bottles on the table. They looked like medicines. They were small, glass bottles with a tight, rubber lid. There were also some syringes with injections next to the bottles. Some of the bottles looked used. Others seemed still unopened.
All the bottles had the same label. It said “Morphine sulfate, Injection USP, 5 mg/ml.” Next to it were a couple of bottles which had morphine tablets.
“Isn’t this a narcotic or is it opium? Or a painkiller?” the other asked.
“I am not sure which one, but it’s one of those. Today is my first day too,” I replied with a smile.
“Was she into drugs or what? Or was this all for patients?” the third one asked.
The three of us exchanged blank glances at each other and shrugged our shoulders.
“Who cares? She is gone, and so are her patients,” the other said.
“True, let’s dump these too into the bag. Remember the warden said pack everything,” I said.
“Ok, yes dear, we got it,” she said and packed it. Soon, we finished the packing.
We checked everything once. We saw that we hadn’t left back anything. It was already past one o’clock. We walked fast to the staff room and handed over the bag to the warden.
“Did you pack everything?” she asked.
“Yes Madam. There were some medicines and a notebook….,” I said, and bent to open the bag and show it to her. But she cut me short.
“Ok good. It’s alright. I will take a look later. You carry on to Hall 2,” she said.
We left and went to the canteen to have lunch before going to Hall 2. Grace Ayah and her room had perplexed all three of us, lost in thought.
“Wasn’t everything about her and her room very secretive and weird?” I asked my colleagues.
“Yeah, I thought so. Almost like a dungeon. A bit eerie too,” the other said.
“Quite depressing,” the third said.
There was an awkward silence. We left it at that, finished our lunch and proceeded to our orientation. We didn’t have any answers.
***
A year later, it was Grace Ayah’s first death anniversary. Someone had put this Mirza Ghalib couplet on the door of her room.
“Marte hain aarzoo mein marne ki,
Maut aati hai par nahin aati.”
Grace Ayah’s room was never allotted to anyone else.
No one spoke about it. The three of us realised by then that it was an open secret though.
That Grace Ayah was the hospital’s secret mercy killing specialist. She was an angel to her terminally ill patients. It was because she, in secret, ended their suffering.
She had good wishes from their families. That was not just because she took care of their dear ones till the end. But it was because, on most occasions, she also brought about their end.
She was a messenger of God for those who had lost everything including hope. The only thing that that they had was their breath. And that was the thing they were desperate to lose.
On our first day of college, unknown to us, we had removed all traces of her acts of ending suffering. She had stored them in the notebook and the bottles of morphine that we had found.
By the stark irony of destiny, the suffering she had helped end in her patients fell in her lap. Some say it was due to her own deeds. Some say it was due to God’s Grace.
***