Disclaimer: This work is based on the novel Cuttong for Stone by Abraham Verghese. No copyright infringment or profit is intended. Thank you for your understanding and for reading.
1.
I have never known true love. As a child my mother had a lover who she claimed to love. He was nothing but a lie who ruined her, and in the end he ruined me, too. There are scars on my face that still sting with a phantom pain when I choose to acknowledge them. From when I made the decision to acknowledge him as my father.
He had a wife, a proper wife unlike my mother. They had children together, legitimate ones. I used to wonder why my mother would deceive herself. She would let him in to her tiny room, into her, and then he would abandon us again. After that my mother would bring me to her again; while the room still smelled of stale sweat and blood. She did it not because I was her daughter, but because I was his. It was a sad mockery of a family life. Was sex really worth that shame? Was love? I wanted my father dead in these moments, as well as my mother on the coldest nights.
For a long time I thought only my mother was foolish enough to love a man who did not return it. Then I realized that unrequited love was an unfortunate aspect of humanity. It was not my blunder, however. Thankfully, I did not become my mother.
There was a fire inside of me whenever he confessed that had nothing to do with love or desire. I adored him as a friend, and loathed him as a boyfriend. I cruelly teased him, but that did not lessen his love for me. Still, he refused to satisfy my innermost question. Was sex worth love? He would not answer me, and I did not know who else to turn to. Then the answer became evident in the form of his brother who did not have his twin's naivety.
When I think back on my actions I do not feel guilt. It was never about him, and the pain he felt was rebounded on me tenfold. The physical pain of my mutilation, the mental anguish at my mother's suicide.
The flame inside of me ignited into something hotter. A pressure since childhood to be something better than I was knocked me off the cliff, our childhood cliff, and straight into the rebellion. I lost myself to that war, and it stopped the fight that was raging inside of me; between my head and my heart. For a long while, there was silence. In the liberation, I was liberated.
I had become my father, instead.
I left the rebellion because I thought I fell in love. For the first time I felt something that made everything worth it. I would start my life again with my husband and our children as a proper family. I had forgotten that all love was the same until I saw him with the other woman. I never truly thought of my father's genuine wife until I was in her position. Watching my husband in bed with this unnamed woman was a horrific mirror image of being sent out of bed so my father could replace me beside my mother.
Would they have a child together? A girl like me, perhaps. I did not give them the opportunity. The fire consumed me once more, this burning passion, and they were dead before I could fully comprehend what was happening.
In all my lessons, I had forgotten fire burned until it left my body as a crisp. Everyone was gone, and when I left prison there was nothing left. When I discovered him again, the boy of unrequited love, I did not feel happiness, but a strange curiosity. If I went to him, would he turn me away, or would he accept me just as my mother routinely accepted my father.
When he let me into his apartment, his bed, I despised him almost as much as I despised myself. Everything was the same.
2.
I am a marble statue; steadfast and immovable.
As a child I rarely spoke. I found that form of communication unnecessary when everything I thought was already being said. Most aspects of life were rather unnecessary. So many people focused on the mundane when it was all a constant, redundant repetition.
Humans were defined by simply being alive. All human bodies functioned in the exact same manner, unless they were sick. When the body became sick, it needed to be healed. There was nothing disgusting about illness, it was merely a malfunctioning body that needed to be fixed.
Sex was another bodily function. It was just as messy as using the toilet, and potentially had about the same amount of satisfaction. Yet everyone was obsessed with the act, more so than they were with healing. Medicine was a miracle ignored, and sex was venerated. There was too much emotion put into the act, a need to justify a person's wants.
I never understood what was so special about seeing a naked body, exploring one in a sexual manner compared to a medical manner. My twin shunned the act. I admired him for that, for noting how unnecessary it was. I was the explorer, the adventurer, coming up with new ideas. He complemented me when his fixation was on perfecting the traditional ones.
That was what I thought. Even after everything began to fall apart, I held strong to my beliefs. There had been nothing wrong in my actions, my twin was simply misunderstanding. I ignored how cold my bed felt after that. Of course it would be cold, without a body to emit heat all I had were my thin blankets.
I gave him my books when he left so we would not be separated. My favourite book held a piece of me inside of it, and our father belonged to the both of us. I would not miss him if we were still connected. My twin would be exploring a new land for the both of us, and I would continue to make dramatic bounds in improving the medical treatment given to women in Ethiopia.
Those were my beliefs, my own separate identity, that I held onto. Until it shattered into a million fragile pieces when I saw him dying on the bed before me. My mother at my side, and my biological father on the other. Everyone else was nameless. I never fully felt regret until that moment. In all my life I never considered myself delicate, but my twin looked weak on the hospital bed instead of operating from beside it. I felt faint staring at him.
There was so much I never said because I was waiting for him to understand. Now I realized it was I who needed the revelation. Before I even left the room I knew what needed to be done to save my twin brother. It would take convincing, but I would see the operation done and have myself whole again.
When I crawled onto the operating bed, looking into his clear eyes, I was home again. It felt as if being a child once more as we pressed our foreheads together. Over the years I had forgotten that I was only half a person, half of ShivaMarion.
I am ash and dust; forgiven and transcendent.
3.
It is unsurprising that I did not feel steady until after my twin's death. Throughout my life I never felt whole. There was always a strange fracture throughout my body that distanced me from reality. It did not occur to me to think myself incomplete. Perhaps that is because the era of ShivaMarion felt so distant, a nostalgic reminder from childhood.
During my adolescence, and even my early adulthood I thought the ache inside of me was because I was missing love. Specifically, the love of my childhood crush. Romantic love, soulmates, isn't that what society urged you to form, to find?
I had forgotten that not all love is romantic love, and not all soulmates need to be romantic. Platonic bonds are just as strong. I love my parents; both sets of them. Sister Mary Joseph Praise's presence is as steady as my heartbeat. Even when I do not have her picture with me, I trust that she is listening. It is the same trust I place in the woman who raised me.
Hema is also my mother. I have two mothers, just as I have two fathers. Even though I denied Thomas Stone during my adolescent life, almost for the same amount of time I revered him as a small child. Finally, as as adult I found a balance to those two conflicting emotions. My biological father is only a man and all men make mistakes.
Ghosh is my other father. Admittedly, I did not feel Sister Mary Joseph Praise's death the way I felt his. I couldn't have, since I was barely born when she died. When Ghosh died, it was an acceptance of his death, as well as hers. Now I am missing a mother and a father. Even then I continued to feel their guiding presence with me.
Everything came in a pair. For a short while I had forgotten I was a pair, as well. Only my twin and I were not like the other pairs. We were not two separate entities, caused by fate to be in the same situation. We were destined. As a child I knew we were meant to be the same person, but in adolescence I forgot. It wasn't until I was an adult again that I remembered.
When my twin died I did not feel a twisted pain as if something had been cut away from me. Instead I felt at peace because something had been returned. In Greek mythology, humans were originally born with four legs and four arms and two heads. They were completely attached until the gods thought them too powerful and cut them in half.
I was lucky to be born with my soulmate, physically attached to him. That upon his death, he did not fade away, but was rejoined with me. We were once more ShivaMarion, and this time we could not be separated.
4.
"Are you a father?" was a question asked to me softly, excitedly, by a variety of people in many different ways.
I always answered no. Biologically, I have two children related to me by blood. That does not make me a father. I never considered the man to raise me to be my father. Perhaps, as an adult understanding him and his illness better, I can relent. There is a certain sympathy for him inside of me. Still, my mother had always been my heart.
When she died it was if my still beating heart had been torn out of my body. After that I met a man who was my mentor. He encouraged me to become a doctor, and with his guidance I felt as if it was possible. My heart began to grow back slowly. When he died, it stopped growing. My heart was smaller than before, my capacity to love felt diminished.
At that moment I did not care. I put all my love into becoming a doctor. Love, as you may know, is not kind. Despite the anxiety that occurred before every operation, physically sickening me, I pushed on. I ignored the rage that occasionally took over my body, refusing to release me until I physically threw something.
"Were you ever married?" it was an honest question, sometimes a flirtatious one, born of genuine curiosity.
I said yes. Many assumed I was referring to my work, with how devoted I was to the medical field. After all, there was no woman in my life, no wedding band on my ring finger.
When I met Mary, I would hardly have considered myself worthy for any woman, let alone a nun. She was beautiful, strong and patient. Where I was a pale comparison: appalling, weak, and short-tempered. My heart was far too small, but I loved her with every inch of it. A woman of standard like Mary was worthy of true love, even from a man such as me.
That is why I did not touch her. Until the memories came rushing back and I realized I had. Her death was proof I was unworthy, as the children that I was responsible for killed her frail body.
In that moment I could not see them at her sons. Nothing a part of her could commit such a gruesome act. Only I could have been responsible for that. Mary was the angel, and I was the demon and the children inside of her were devils.
When I realized my mistake it was too late. The twins already had a father, one far better than I would have been. They had a mother, as well. One who respected Mary, and her presence in her children's life. I could appreciate that, even as I mourned for what could have been.
My children met me missing a father, but I knew they were not looking for a replacement. My time had passed. Yet, over time, my children had come to accept me. It was not something I expected. I could not be the man who raised them, but apparently I was still something.
I am a father.
And I have never been married.
5.
I listen and I understand.
There is a startling clarity in death that could not be revealed to me when I was living. Things about men that I refused to understand. When I came across Missing; bleeding and broken there was very little I wanted to understand about men. During that time I was thankful to be a nun, to have that barrier between my body and the world.
My doctor slowly changed that. Over time I slowly dropped that barrier. Now I realize I was the only one who noticed he had also dropped his. Reflecting on that time, even after death, I can see now that not even he realized how close we had become.
Distantly, without even realizing it, I became something to him. I understood my doctor.
Of course, I should have realized it in that moment. When I came to understand a man: physically, spiritually and mentally, I completed something. Shortly after that, nine months to be exact, I died giving birth to two sons.
It was with that act I understood two more men. From since they were boys, to almost fully grown, to proper adults. I followed them on their journey, guiding them and helping when I was capable. It upsets me that even when I was able to watch this, my doctor was not.
That did not matter. If they could not tell him, but I believed they would, I would tell their story as I never told mine.
One of my son's died early. It was unexpected, but not something I could prevent. He did not return to me, however. Instead he stood by his brother, and was waiting to pass over.
I was not surprised.
My doctor would return to me first, apology on his lips. I would press that apology away. When the time came, we would both greet our children home. For the first time, in a new life.