When Aadya kanna was six months old, we made an appointment to have her ears pierced – in line with the age old tradition of doing it when the child is a mere baby. I didn’t even give the decision much thought. It just sounded like something that was always done. Aadya did not cry at all when the first ear was pierced. She cried when her second ear was pierced – for about 2 seconds before we distracted her with all the goings on in the mall we were at. She would in fact, cry much longer for her favorite toy at that age than she did for her ear piercing. So we went back home pretty pleased that this rite of passage was out of the way at the cost of so few tears.
It was a little later that I mentioned this to a cousin who asked me, “Really?”. He found it difficult to believe that we’d take a decision to permanently mark Aadya at an age where she could barely sit up. That was the first time I was asked this question. At that time, I flippantly responded that she should consider herself lucky if this was the only scar we’d leave on her in the several years of growing up that’d follow. And that the chances of me leaving lasting scars on her psyche where perhaps much higher than that of her begrudging me this physical scar. But I also thought of it for the first time – about my six month old baby and her right to make her own decisions – even painful ones like getting a piercing.
This thought has come back to haunt me – several times in the five years that have followed. In the year that we spent taking her to test after test to find a name for the diagnosis which seemed to be plaguing our then one year old. In the months that we spent agonizing over the decision about a g-tube surgery that’d help our two year old child get the nutrition she really needed. And in the last couple of weeks, when we see our five year old on an ICU bed, a breathing tube down her mouth, a ventilator forcing her every breath, hands secured with ties and sedated to keep her oblivious of all the interventions that keep her tiny body alive.
I’ve never found the right answer. Are we doing this for us or for her? Does she want this life at the cost it is exacting on her body? How much further will we go before we venture into territory where it becomes less about her and more about our need to have her in our lives? Are we, in fact, already there?
Then, in the brief window in which the sedatives wear off and our little girl comes back to us smiling her real smile at some nonsense that we just spouted or at a Dora figurine or at a kind stranger who just called her sweet girl before poking her fingers for the tenth time in the day, I think how can I give up? How can anyone give up when after all this, this little human can still smile? She can still want – a parent to cuddle next to, a video call to see her sisters or aunt, a book to color, nail paint to match her hospital gown and pigtails with pretty clips to go with it. As long as she can want and she can smile, maybe it is all justified. And I justify it to myself – each additional scar at a time.