The great vast network connects
and divides us - time stretches us thin;
we give years to the knowing,
the unravelling of others -
in the end, when change comes,
we know nothing.
We learned nothing yesterday
that we remember today
but for the sense of
once upon a time, when we began.
© Shaista Tayabali, 2014
Image: A Game of Patience, 1937, Meredith Frampton via Magpie Tales
An Elegy to Peter Lapsley, a Stranger, and Chaitan Maniar, a Friend
For years I had been wanting to write an
article for the Patient Journey section of the BMJ - the British Medical
Journal. Finally, I wrote to the editor, a Peter Lapsley, and explained my
desire to create awareness about a condition that still befuddles doctors and
patients alike. Peter was lovely in his email and promised he would consider my
piece even though a long list of articles were waiting to be published. Only
one other patient had written a lupus journey, so I started to write mine.
Then I began my MA and the article slipped out
of my mind.
A few weeks ago I recalled it. MA done, I
remembered Peter and although I was deathly embarrassed about the time that had
passed, I crossed my fingers and sent the article to him.
No reply.
And then, finally, a rather chilly one line message from
anonymous, saying Peter had died last year and could I contact the current
editor of the BMJ instead.
Dead. Just like that. Time passes. And you miss
a person's life altogether.
So I googled Peter, just to see. Just to say
hello to his ghostly internet spirit. And here he is. Doesn't he look nice?
And I discover two things: the first is that he was a literary giant in the field of fly fishing. And second, Peter had lupus. Peter died
because of leukaemia but having lupus would have made him more fragile.
And I find myself wishing he had told me. It would have made me send my article pronto. It would have given me that
special fellow feeling we lonely lupus patients need. But of course, he was a professional medical editor. Did he want to, though? Was he tempted?
Isn't it funny how we know death is ever present,
can claim us at any time, and still we don't act. We truly live, believing life
is endless, forever, a patient river we can swim in at our discretion. Are we the most
arrogant of species, or simply the most hopeful?
Death claimed my father's oldest and best schoolfriend a few days ago. A prominent lawyer in Bombay, Chaitan Maniar was something of a Shakespearean hero. Noble in the true sense of the word. He was a literary giant too, in a nonchalant way - a man who could quote poetry and philosophy and the law as easily as he breathed and walked. I am trying not to grieve for him, because I was his friend too, and true friends leave nothing undone. This picture is from the last time he visited, two months ago, kissed by evening light, with his best friend's son and granddaughter…