I lost my father. He had diabetes and high BP and so he died of

Host: The hospital corridor was half-lit — sterile, echoing, and heavy with the quiet language of grief. The distant beep of machines and the faint shuffle of nurses’ shoes filled the silence like the rhythm of a tired heart. The walls were painted that peculiar shade of off-white that never feels clean, only indifferent.

A single window at the end of the hall showed the city beyond — lights flickering through the rain, blurred by tears neither sky nor man wanted to shed.

Jack sat on a wooden bench outside Room 206, elbows on knees, his hands clasped, his eyes fixed on the floor as though meaning could be found there. His shirt sleeves were rolled up; his tie hung loose, forgotten. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and rain.

Jeeny stood a few feet away, her coat still damp from outside, her hair falling in strands across her face. She watched him — not with pity, but with the kind of stillness that love learns when it knows words can’t fix what time just broke.

Host: The night carried the sound of loss — the kind that doesn’t cry out, but hums low, steady, like a note that refuses to fade.

Jeeny: (softly) “Varun Sharma once said, ‘I lost my father. He had diabetes and high BP and so he died of kidney failure.’”

Jack: (barely lifting his head) “That’s not a quote, Jeeny. That’s a wound.”

Jeeny: “So is every truth that doesn’t try to sound poetic.”

Host: The rain tapped faintly against the window. A nurse walked by — her shoes squeaking softly, her eyes down. Somewhere, a monitor beeped its quiet countdown to inevitability.

Jack: (after a pause) “It’s strange how people turn lives into statistics. Diabetes. BP. Kidney failure. Like a story can fit into three words and a file number.”

Jeeny: “It’s how people protect themselves from feeling. The smaller the sentence, the easier it is to say.”

Jack: (shaking his head) “There’s nothing small about watching someone disappear one heartbeat at a time.”

Jeeny: “No. There isn’t.”

Host: Jeeny moved closer, sitting beside him on the bench. The faint hum of the fluorescent light above flickered, a tremor in the stillness.

Jack: “You know what hurts the most? Not the end. The in-between. The waiting. The pretending he might still wake up. The way the nurses whisper like you’re not supposed to hope too loudly.”

Jeeny: “That’s the cruelest part of hope. It sounds like healing right up until it breaks.”

Jack: “He was strong, you know? Not in the way movies show. Just… steady. The kind of man who fixed things with silence. He used to say, ‘Life’s about maintenance.’ Funny, huh? Even his body broke from maintaining too much.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it wasn’t breaking. Maybe it was surrendering.”

Jack: “He didn’t believe in surrender. He used to call it ‘quitting dressed as peace.’”

Host: His voice cracked slightly at the edge — the sound of someone trying not to fall apart. He pressed his palms together, breathing deeply, as though remembering was both anchor and knife.

Jeeny: “You don’t have to hold it together, Jack.”

Jack: “If I let go, there’s nothing left to hold.”

Jeeny: “That’s not true. There’s memory. There’s blood. There’s the parts of him that still breathe when you speak.”

Jack: “You make grief sound gentle.”

Jeeny: “It isn’t. But it’s sacred. It means you loved something real.”

Host: The rain grew heavier outside, the droplets racing down the window like time itself — unstoppable, indivisible. The light from the hallway bent around them, warm and ghostly.

Jack: “You know, he used to whistle when he cooked. Just these stupid little songs from the 70s. I hated it then. Now I’d give anything to hear it again. It’s crazy what silence teaches you to miss.”

Jeeny: “That’s because silence doesn’t erase sound — it echoes it. You’re just learning to hear it differently.”

Jack: (quietly) “You ever lose someone like that?”

Jeeny: “Yes.”

Jack: “How’d you survive it?”

Jeeny: “I didn’t. Not at first. You don’t survive grief. You build around it — like roots around a stone.”

Host: A long pause followed. The kind of pause that holds its own dialogue — breath, memory, and ache all speaking in the same language.

Jack: “You think it ever stops hurting?”

Jeeny: “No. But it changes. One day, the pain starts telling stories instead of questions.”

Jack: “And that’s healing?”

Jeeny: “That’s remembering without collapsing.”

Host: A nurse entered the hallway, dimming the lights further. The world seemed to exhale. Jack looked up finally — his eyes, rimmed red but clear, meeting Jeeny’s.

Jack: “I never told him enough.”

Jeeny: “No one ever does.”

Jack: “You think he knew?”

Jeeny: “Of course he did. Love doesn’t always need to be said, Jack. It’s in the small things — the way you stayed. The way you’re still here.”

Host: The candle of fluorescent light above them flickered again, then steadied. Somewhere, the sound of a monitor stopped — not abruptly, but peacefully, like a note reaching its end.

Jack: “You know what’s strange? I used to fear his death. Now I fear forgetting the sound of his laugh.”

Jeeny: “Then laugh for him. That’s how memory survives — by imitation, not preservation.”

Jack: “He’d laugh at that. He’d call it poetic nonsense.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “And then he’d do it anyway.”

Host: The rain outside slowed to a drizzle. The faintest trace of dawn began to edge along the horizon — pale light filtering through the hospital window, turning everything softer.

Jack leaned back, closing his eyes. For a moment, the silence between them was not grief, but gratitude — fragile, trembling, human.

Jeeny reached over, resting her hand gently over his.

Jeeny: “You know, Varun Sharma wasn’t trying to sound tragic when he said that. He was just telling the truth — simple, unpolished, human. Sometimes, that’s the bravest kind of honesty.”

Jack: (whispering) “Yeah. The kind that doesn’t hide behind beauty.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Some truths don’t need poetry. They just need to be spoken.”

Host: The camera panned slowly down the corridor — two figures beneath the fading hospital light, the sound of rain giving way to quiet.

And as the dawn broke through the window, the world began again — carrying with it both loss and light.

Walter Cronkite once said freedom was all or nothing;
perhaps grief is the same.

It does not come in pieces —
it comes whole, and when it leaves, it leaves something whole behind.

And in the hush of that sterile hallway,
the echo of Varun Sharma’s simple truth remained:

“I lost my father. He had diabetes and high BP and so he died of kidney failure.”

Host: For some words are not meant to inspire —
they are meant to remember.