Mahanth S. Joishy is Editor of usindiamonitor

For context you can find Chapter 1 here + Chapter 2 here + Chapter 3 here + Chapter 4 here.

After my lymphoma diagnosis on St. Patrick’s Day, I experienced some sadness, anger, fear, anxiety, self-pity among other unwelcome feelings. This forced me to contemplate some new questions that had never come up before. For example I started wondering why I was unable to shed any tears in the days and months after St. Patty’s, whether I should attempt to make myself cry for physical and/or mental health reasons, if it would help the grieving process, or whether either crying or never crying was a more “normal” thing for someone in my circumstances. It really didn’t matter though, as I never came close to crying, I didn’t know why, and I couldn’t force tears anyway regardless of what I was feeling. I eventually figured having a cry or two might never happen at least on account of my health developments, and that was OK by me. I rarely cry. Which has nothing to do with pride, shame or machismo, as evidenced by my sharing or perhaps oversharing right here. In my adult life before lymphoma I had cried exactly five times, and can easily recite why it happened in every case. More on those episodes later if that’s of interest to anyone.

At a moment when I least expected it my adult cry #6 and the first since my diagnosis eventually would take place in a faraway land, or a faraway little Caribbean island to be precise. Last spring and summer I promised to treat myself to some world travel to new places in the upcoming winter if my health allowed, and started researching options. Sort of like a reward for engaging in the fight to heal, and something to look forward to during the dark days when I couldn’t get out of bed. I was fixated on flying somewhere sunny, hot and humid with beaches overflowing with crystal clear waters. The cold Wisconsin winter is by far the hardest season for someone with my rare version of lymphoma called Sezary Syndrome. My skin takes on damage from the climate and dry air caused by heaters, and the thinning of my skin causes unpleasant temperature regulation problems. Last winter just before my diagnosis was the worst. Indeed it was a winter of discontent and I could not comprehend why I was freezing all the time when everyone else around me felt fine in the exact same environments. In previous winters my tolerance for cold was normal and never hampered my plans. This time I hardly went outside except from home to office and back from November till March because it was intolerable even after bundling in layers to be out for even limited periods of time.

In short, last winter sucked. But I plotted with pretty much vengeful desire to make up for it in spectacular fashion when this winter rolled around. The timing was perfect as I finally completed my aggressive course of Romidepsin treatments in October, and agreed with my retired Oncologist Dad and my doctor to take a pause from starting my new treatment of Vorinostat pills and give my body a break for several weeks. This break from treatment and its substantial side effects presented the perfect window of opportunity to travel solo and take care of myself in a faraway country in relatively better health than I’d been in for 6 long months. I know what I like. Besides big city aimless wandering, beaches, pools, eye candy, exotic fruits and fresh seafood, I was looking to soak in volcanic mineral mud baths, which offered great relief to my skin during past adventures in New Zealand and a Costa Rica Skincation (chronicled here).

I am very lucky, for I was able to configure a badly needed break for myself that perfectly fit the bill. From November 1-11, 2023 I spent a virtually perfect vacation in and around Cartagena, Colombia. The only thing preventing perfection was that my energy level was not nearly where I wanted it to be to do all the things I wanted to do, so I settled for half-speed and accepted spending much of the time in my hotel room resting between activities. Cartagena turned out to be exactly the rejuvenating destination I needed to recharge the battery away from work and winter. Fittingly, there was a dusting of snow on the ground the morning an Uber dropped me off at Madison Airport. Knowing I was leaving it behind actually made me feel even more optimistic about the timing of my upcoming journey.

I landed in Cartagena to tropical heat that would last the entire time with bouts of heavy rain mixed in. Both states of weather were pleasing after Madison. The next day after landing I began exploring the most beautiful city I have ever seen in my travels through 25 sovereign nations, aimlessly wandering for miles and miles around Bocagrande, the Walled City and Getsemani. That day I also ironed out my itinerary for the next 10 days, during which my Spanish skills got a strenuous workout as nobody I interacted with spoke much English, which was just fine by me. This was a getaway from normal life after all. By the end I was even thinking in Spanish.

Inked onto the itinerary for the upcoming Tuesday morning was a round trip boat ride to a small, quiet beach island about an hour’s ride away from Cartagena’s main city docks to spend most of the day doing absolutely nothing. By then I’d already experienced a handful of other gorgeous islands around Cartagena packed to the gills with tourists in the mood to party their asses off on the previous day’s boat tour. I was promised by the lady at the travel agency near my hotel that Isla Lizamar on the other hand would have a very chill vibe, when I requested an island as tranquilo as possible. This turned out to be accurate, quite the contrast from the memorable stop at the infamous party island called Isla Cholon on Monday which featured the most insane raging fiesta I’ve ever seen on any beach anywhere. In fact Cholon hosted the most aggressive, wildest afternoon celebration I’ve ever witnessed in my life except for Carnival in Brazil when I was 26 years old. Everything goes in Cholon. Fresh lobster, oysters, other seafood and fruits, booze, hookers, hookahs, drugs, or anything else that revelers from around the world could possibly want were readily available from continuously swarming touts.

At my age and in my condition I was looking forward to exploring another, more genteel side of the sector of Caribbean Ocean hugging Colombia. Fortunately Isla Lizamar was exactly what the doctor ordered and was the highlight of my entire trip by far. If fact, spending a day on this tiny island was one of the highlights of my entire life. Stunningly beautiful sands, palm trees and crystal blue and green waters gently lapped against the shore on shallow beaches making for an extremely serene scene, with only a small handful of tourists most or all who seemed Colombian. The morning on Lizamar started with a fruit cocktail welcome drink upon disembarking at the docks, following which my fellow travelers and I were free to go our own way and settle on one of many spectacular quiet lounging areas on the island, to be alone like me or to be social like some others at the pool or bar area. My only responsibilities for the day were to show up at the restaurant at noon for a fresh seafood lunch, and find my way back to the dock at 3pm to board the boat back to Cartagena. Isla Lizamar featured a cute and colorful little daytime-only resort that shut down every afternoon until the next morning- so I absolutely had to make that boat. I was confident I could handle these duties. The resort onshore featured a restaurant, bar, pool, convenience store, a menagerie of hot pink flamingos, and indescribably gorgeous beaches. These pictures I took cannot do justice to the stunning canvas of scenery laid out in front of me. This place is meant to be imbibed in person to fully appreciate. The spectacular views, the tranquilo vibe, and the fact that I had landed into this exotic tropical time and place made me extremely charged with emotion all of a sudden.

My friends: the boat had dropped me at the very gates of the Gods if there is such a thing; the closest thing to a slice of Paradise I’ve ever encountered on my adventures, or an outpost of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. The most eloquent words I can attempt to dream up for this elegant island fall short, and I’ve been thinking about how to best describe Isla Lizamar for some days now. Yes, I know there are many beautiful beach resorts around the world with crystal clear water, and I’ve been to many of those. But something was different about this Isla at least for me. There was something magical in the air.

After the delicious cold welcome drink I found a comfortable wooden swing on a quiet dock jutting out onto the water covered by a thatched roof with nobody else around.

Over the next few hours, alternating between lounging and dipping in the water like mini self-baptisms, the strong emotions I was feeling in this magical place inadvertently began to overwhelm me. I wept intermittently for short bouts of time over the next few hours.

I had complete privacy, nowhere I had to be, nobody I had to see, nothing I had to do except soak in Paradise for the day. I wasn’t feeling hungry and skipped lunch to get more time alone on the isolated dock. So I just allowed the tears to flow when they presented themselves. In total the tears only dripped a few seconds here and there over the course of several hours, but it felt amazing the whole time. The experience could even be called spiritual for the way everything aligned.

It was definitely not forced. I did not cry out of self-pity, sadness, guilt, or any other negative emotion. No, the reason for the dam breaking was much more glorious than those base feelings. Letting myself succumb was actually uplifting, and if it ever might happen again organically I would welcome it without hesitation or resistance. An experience made even sweeter because it was entirely unexpected, for a reason I would never have guessed.

I cried as a result of the purest, most unadulterated gratitude to the universe I’ve ever felt.

I was entering epiphany territory. This state of being was something entirely new. I must have started tearing up because of the emergence of deep gratitude for this particular moment in this beautiful Paradise even being possible. Gratitude that I had the financial resources and time to make this unforgettable opportunity materialize, which most denizens of this planet do not and sadly never will. That the Internet provided all the information I needed for free to easily plan the adventure. That I could be safe in this slice of Paradise that was previously run by violent gangsters and corrupt officials, making my ability to visit as a gringo prohibitively risky in the not too distant past. Gratitude that this area had improved, and recovered, from those days and that life was much better now for the people who called this dreamscape home. That I was healthy enough to make this foray into an alternate reality for rest and relaxation. That I could feel my body healing as I rested in this lovely ecosystem of flaura, fauna, and sea.

Most of all, I wept out of gratitude that I had been afflicted by a disease which motivated me to plan a trip to Colombia and find this Paradise in the first place. I would never have ended up treating myself to a vacation in Colombia at this time otherwise. My life priorities have changed. Just another stark example of why my lymphoma has turned into a blessing.

***

The experience also made me reminisce about my past. For those curious about the precisely five earlier times that I cried as an adult person, they were each as unforgettable as the last one. Categorically they happened for very different reasons from Colombia though. Here are the Mahanth Adult Cries Explained, in order:

* On 9/11, my world was thoroughly shattered. It was turned upside down. Of course I’m one of the lucky ones that avoided getting hurt or killed. I was age 22 on that day and had just moved to New York City in late July 2001, one month into working for New York City government itself. A fresh college graduate who had just completed a fascinating final semester senior year course that spring at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service taught by two Secret Service consultants. My final paper for the course on national security just so happened to be about the vulnerability of American critical infrastructure to potential terrorist attack. Then there was the eerie stuff, bordering on paranormal. Numerous times in the years before 9/11 I experienced the same creepy nightmare where I was sitting on the far left window seat above the left wing of an airplane, staring outside helplessly while the aircraft was heading alarmingly and purposefully straight for the New York skyline. While inside the dreams I was vaguely aware that the commercial airline pilots were not in control nor intended this dangerous flight plan whatsoever. That was the entirety of the dream. On top of all those uncanny coincidences, I grew up for four years in a beautiful, mountainous region of the Middle East where 5 of the 9/11 hijackers, all around my age, grew up and were radicalized by Al Qaeda before embarking on the most spectacular attack on America since Pearl Harbor in 1942. I have shared here my opinions on why this made perfect sense.

In the days and weeks following 9/11 I went through a gauntlet of anxiety and depressing thoughts, like many others, but thanks to the support of good friends and family who also found themselves in the middle of the mess, we got through that dark period together. So did New York City as a whole, which endeared me to this magic megapolis so strongly that I stayed with NYC government for 16 years and have still never left local government service 22 years later.

For maybe two weeks, I either did not or could not cry over the meaningless death and destruction that had crept awfully close to home. That would change. Several weeks after 9/11, I was reading a Time magazine special edition article profiling New Yorkers who were involved in responding to the terrorist attack in various ways. I cannot recall any of their names. I do remember there was a Sikh doctor who worked tirelessly around the clock in the emergency room to treat victims of the attack, even as he was looked on with suspicion because he sported a turban and a long beard, while of course his people had nothing to do with anything except being victimized by ignorant Americans even in America’s most diverse and cultured city in the uneasy aftermath of 9/11.

While reading another man’s profile I started crying like a child. I am guessing it had been building up inside before the spigot opened. I had probably read hundreds of articles and watched dozens of television news reports on the horror of 9/11 by then. But this one particular profile is the one that did it. The person profiled in Time was a middle-aged, muscular African-American construction worker. He looked tough as nails. In the magazine’s black and white photo of him standing, in my vague recollection 22 years later, he wore a hardhat and carried a big sledgehammer on his shoulder. He was part of the trades crew that originally built the World Trade Center twin towers before they opened in 1973. Then, 28 years later, he had again been called back to work at Ground Zero, this time on demolition and cleanup for the massive towers that had fallen. He was quoted saying something like “How messed up is it that I’ve been involved in both putting them up and taking them down?” I am hoping to find this article again somehow.

This man’s story about coming full circle filled me with a deep and dark sadness, and I lost it.

*Cry #2 happened in 2007, when the Michael Moore movie Sicko was released. I went to watch it in a theater in New York with some friends. There was one particular scene in that movie that overwhelmed me with a combination of weird feelings, and I lost it despite being right in the middle of a crowded theater. I couldn’t help it.

The scene took place in Cuba, where Director Michael Moore had gathered a group of 9/11 first responders suffering from serious health conditions as a result of their service at Ground Zero during the frantic search and rescue phase, when PPE might not have been deployed consistently amidst the chaos. Despite that honorable service they were having trouble getting adequate and affordable medical care in the United States in the years afterward. They were ostensibly treated well, for free, at a Cuban government hospital according to the documentary footage. While in Cuba, the group also visited a local fire station, where the Havana firefighters working there had set up a solemn honor guard ceremony for the American visitors. It was both beautiful and hard to watch.

The fire station Captain addressed the American guests in Spanish, “It is a great honor to have you visit our station. We all learned about this terrible moment on 9/11, and it gave us a great sadness. And, from the human point of view, we would’ve liked to have helped with the rescue operations that were underway at that moment. Firefighters around the world are family.”

This short segment was raw and real. There were tears, and hugs. This respectful, classy and simple ceremony bringing together first responders from hostile nations made me cry. Here were the Havana firefighters, at full attention, in full uniform, saluting the heroes from New York they had only just met. No doubt the Cuban public servants had endured a life of poverty and hardship, thanks at least in part to relentless oppression including crippling economic sanctions and clandestine activity spanning decades by the United States that continues to make life miserable for our neighbors to the South through no fault of their own. Yet these courageous Cuban men, themselves heroes in their own community, displayed amazing character to celebrate their American counterparts in a touching show of humanity, admirably putting aside the political rifts between the two societies. These types of inspiring gestures make me believe that anything is possible. You may watch the short scene here starting at minute 20:25:

*Cry *3. The next number you may or may not be familiar with, and if not here’s your chance to experience greatness. The short and bittersweet music video to the young Alicia Keys’ song Falling also made me lose it towards the end the first time I watched it, sometime in the early 2000’s. I may have even been living in Hell’s Kitchen at the time, which is where Alicia Keys grew up. The video is a masterpiece of melancholy, appropriately matching up to Alicia’s transcendental vocals. Falling is a hauntingly powerful study of the painful lives led by too many African-American men and women whose partners are locked up in jail. The video confronts the injustice of our flawed judicial system, which grossly over-incarcerates African-American males, thereby damaging legions of careers, couples and families while stunting progress catastrophically for an entire minority culture. It’s not an overtly political video, and it’s not explicitly spelled out but I intuitively pictured Alicia’s partner behind bars being innocent, like so many in real life are right now, and could not hold back the tears after seeing the depressing specter of these two beautiful fictional characters rendered apart by terrible circumstances. Watching also made me worry that Alicia’s song was speaking from her own real experience.

*Cry #4 was as unexpected as the rest. It happened while watching by far the best speaker at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) 2016. And I’d never even heard of the guy before, like most people, and had no idea he was part of the convention lineup when I tuned in. Gold Star father Khizr Khan, Pakistani-American father of the slain US soldier Humayun Khan, and a non-politician in fact delivered one of the best speeches ever seen in US politics. Seeing two grieving parents on the stage like this doing their patriotic duty while democracy was already under grave assault added gravity to the pivotal and infamous moment when he pulled the US Constitution out of his pocket and challenged Trump to read it. Such powerful stuff! I wept for quite a while that night. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to make up for an incompetent campaign.

*The last one is Cry #5. In Spring 2020 my close friend and colleague in New York, Lenin Fierro, passed away at age 43 during the very initial COVID surge in New York City. He worked hard on my team for four years, above and beyond, and between work and then after-work dinners and drinks in downtown Manhattan, we could easily spend above 50 hours together in a week. That’s a lot of time, but we liked each other that much. I had not known how bad it was towards the end and never had a chance to talk to him. Due to the pandemic there was no way to fly over for a funeral and experience catharsis with family, friends, and colleagues as might have happened in normal times. I know so many who went through similar pain throughout the long pandemic.

In 2022 I was deeply touched to receive an award from NYC DCAS and Together for Safer Roads for my work. Having Lenin’s good name prominently connected to mine in this way is among the biggest honors of my life. I booked a flight to LaGuardia to attend the ceremony and conference in New York City. Before takeoff at Madison airport while going through the security line, I was thinking about my old friend and right there, in front of many people, I just lost it out of nowhere. I cannot imagine what the TSA agents and other passengers must have been thinking to see a grown man break down while putting his shoes back on after the magnetometer.