There was a time when I used to cut my fingers a lot. I traveled to Mongolia for work assignments and cut my finger while chopping vegetables and opening tuna cans. My co-workers helped me put coffee on the wound until it stopped bleeding. It took so long to stop that I thought I had some blood abnormality and went to a doctor when I was back home in Sri Lanka. The doctor said I was just fine.
Mongolia was a haven to me at that time despite the cuts and the long working hours because my parents were running a prison house. They had gotten to know that I was dating a non-Muslim a few months prior and taken God’s reins into their own human hands.
After that work-travel phase, I didn’t cut my fingers as much, although I probably cooked much more because I immigrated to the US and began living on my own. Maybe I learned my lesson with knives and cans.
Decades later, I cut my finger again on a cardboard label attached to my new Uniqlo pants. Serves me right for wearing pants, while feeling uncertain if I needed to return them. This cut was, however, smaller compared to the Mongolian cuts, and I didn’t need coffee to stop the bleeding. A small, pedestrian plaster was enough. A plaster to stop contact with water and soap that would hinder the healing.
We need plasters for grief too. This is the no-contact period after a breakup. Or, at the least, a reduced, selective contact period. Otherwise, the wound festers under the pretense of life. We continue to carry the wound and spread its valor everywhere.
But a plaster is not avoidance either. A plaster still allows us to process and heal, while not coming into contact with the contaminant. The contaminants are always welcome after the healing has largely completed.
Before having my evening bath that day, I took off the plaster, and everything was well and good. I decided not to wear a plaster the next day because it was a tiny cut.
I cooked and touched a lot of spices. No surprises: the cut started hurting again, and I had to wear another plaster.
This, too, is something to watch out for in grief. Premature plaster removal can lead to dire consequences.
