The
Unforgotten Longing
Life is unfolding in front of my eyes moment by
moment, months by months ,years by years. There are many missing pages in my
story. My heart yearns to remember them fondly, somehow tears roll down my
cheek bones.
My heart goes out to the eight month pregnant lady
who was a witness to untimely loss of her father. The woman who gave birth to a
bonny baby boy who did not survive and was buried as per religious customs and
she could not attend the burial. These memories haunted her till the last breath
that maybe her son was actually alive while everyone buried him. Her heart
ripped at the mere thought of this possibility ( which was of course never there)
I can see my school friend in basket ball ground of
middle school crying after missing school for two weeks, only to reveal that she
had lost her father suddenly due to heart attack while he was chatting with her
and her sister. I can see the pain in my friend,s eyes, my best friend
Kamaljeet when she shifted to Long Island ,New York. I could see flames arising from pyre of my childhood
friend Meena, who had lost contact once she got married only to see her obituary
in newspaper when I was in medical school.
My grand mother,s figure draped in white
in back yard of my hostel room, bidding me farewell and after few days my
parents revealed that my nani had left for the higher journey the very next
morning (I had seen her- strange).The unseen (smiling) faces of my nephews who
left this world during intra uterine life.
My junior in my residency days who died in train and
we got a call from Director,s office summoning us to go to Mumbai CST railway station to
collect his body. The long ordeal of paperwork, collection of body, postmortem, embalming and finally dropping him at airport. That was the first time I
witnessed postmortem of someone so close. Something inside broke and I became
a changed person. I started believing in life after death.
There are many more happy moments. Somehow, as I see
my life all the painful incidents seem to
have been stitched together. The dusk time is striking a melancholy chord. I
try to fast forward the few losses and the tape gets stuck on 18 June, 2015 evening
6 pm- when I witnessed the most painful experience loss of my mother in my own
hands,my lap, in front of my eyes. I changed. With her, went a part of me and
I felt incomplete.
No solace or comfort was enough rather, is enough
still. Each evening as the sun sets, the memories automatically start moving
like a slideshow. I have got used to
this and send my love to the other world.My mother chose me. Maybe she thought I was the
toughest. She left on a happy note as she was a contented, soul who was waiting
to cross over the other side to meet her parents, brother and her first son-
Happy.
In august 2016, my closet friend shifted base
overseas. I survived this jolt gracefully.
Meditation has helped me immensely to overcome this
Unforgotten longing.
I quote my favourite lines- Aadat song from movie Kalyug:
Juda hokar bhi tu mujh me kahin baaki hai, palkon par bann ke yaad, ......chali aati hai.......
God bless you.
Love,
Juju
5 comments:
Your post made me cry, made me emotional. There is magic in your writing.
The tapestry of events is so vivid and has made you a stronger person .. 🙏
I can feel every bit of it
I want a post based on happy memories too
The losses and the helplessness remind us that we are just humans and teach us to love what we still have.
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