Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining: When Clichés Come True

Sometimes difficult times can give you a new lens to see things with, bringing cliches to life. Silver Talkies Club Member Padmaja Duvvuri writes about the same. 

Truth be told, I am not very fond of clichés. They sound very trite, and I often ask myself whether they are true. But recent times have taught all of us to question many of our beliefs. Change the way we look at things. And the one big lesson that I have learned is that it is okay to fall back on some adages if they make you feel better.

At the risk of repeating, once again, what everybody is saying: it’s been tough, to say the least. Everyone is affected. There has perhaps been only two, maybe three degrees of separation between the pandemic and most of us. None of us can say that what has happened (is still going on) has not affected us. In such a time, keeping afloat is the mantra. Everybody says, to stay positive. I have found it difficult to do so. But what I do is try to go through every day as best as I can.

I got an intense bout of Covid-19 in April 2021. I was hospitalized for five days. It was dismal and lonely. Seeing the harried doctors and hospital staff did not help. I am a single parent of two children – a daughter (now married) and a son. Like many parents, I have also held the notion that my children don’t care about me. I have often wondered about my son (who lives with me), how he would manage life, how he would ever do well for himself. I always saw him as a spoilt person, a little lazy, and someone who expected me to do most things for him.

But when I got the dreaded infection, I saw Mihir swing into action – an oxygen concentrator was at home within an hour of my testing positive. When getting a hospital bed was almost impossible, he went at it with relentless energy for two days and got me into Manipal Hospital, one of the best in Bangalore, no less. And all this when he was down with Covid-19 himself. He had a fever, fatigue, and all the rest of it. He was the mainstay who kept all family, friends, and colleagues informed about everything. And looked after our dog and home with no help!

But there was something even more incredible that happened – we are not a family which is vocal about how much we care for each other. We have only been very vociferous with all our fights and arguments. The second day I was in the hospital, he called and cried. Told me how much he loved me. Told me how much he wanted me back home. How alone he felt.

So now, we still argue and fight. But, while earlier I despaired, now I smile and enjoy what I now know to be love and affection. I no longer worry about what his future holds for him. I know that he will manage just fine. Definitely, a silver lining, don’t you think?

Another story I want to relate to is about a friend who lives in Mumbai. She’s single too, and a little younger than me. Just before the second lockdown, an old friend came to stay with her for a few days because he had some work in the city. Both had been very fond of each other many years ago but had drifted apart as lives took their individual courses. But both remained single. Then the lockdown happened, and today they are partners. True companions who share common interests, spend time together, discuss life, and help and support each other. My friend says that this may not have happened if the lockdown had not been enforced, given that both of them had their own lives, busy, occupied, independent. It took a lockdown for them to realize that there was a lacuna that they could fill in each other’s lives. A most precious gift, I believe.

Like I said at the beginning, the title of the story is a cliché. It will be a little trite for some of us who are going through a lot of personal loss, and for that, I apologize. The intent here is not to trivialize anyone’s grief. It is to talk about being ‘alright’ in these trying times. It’s about looking at things wearing a different lens—a lens of hope.