It seems like just yesterday, rather it seems like
it happened just a minute back. But it has been 6 months now and yet I cannot
come to terms with it. I do not know how it is that way, since I was right
there holding her head as she took her last breath. I felt her pulse stop under
my fingers yet I cannot believe it, rather I cannot accept it or simply that I just
don’t want to.
My ajji, my grandmother, has been there with me
always, right from the moment I opened my eyes and entered the world. She was,
is and always will be ‘my everything’.
She is the one who held my hand and helped me take
my first steps, though those were almost the only ones I took. She would not
let my toes touch the ground, would carry me everywhere, and treated me like a
princess being the queen she was.
When I came into the world, they placed my hand
inside an old wrinkled hand. It is a hand I caught and never left. It is a hand
I can never dream of leaving. But when nature intervened and snatched her hand
away, I could do nothing but watch.
Never have I felt as helpless as I felt as cancer
chose to prey on her for the second time. The only thing I could feel was
undeniable anger and hatred towards life. I felt as though the world was
conspiring against me by taking away the person I love the most. She is the
best person on the planet and she did not deserve that. It is completely unfair
and I feel worthless that I could not do anything. I tried a lot, I prayed with
all my heart for me to be taken instead of her. For me to switch places with
her. I would still do it in a heartbeat. I would have sold my soul to the devil
if it meant saving her.
Ajji lived a full life, she wanted to keep living. The
most important thing I have learnt from her is ‘the will to live’. Till her
last week she only dreamed of getting better.
Her eyes would crinkle and she would laugh and say, “God
gave us life to ENJOY IT”.
Yes, she is the coolest grandmother on the planet. The
only 72 year old I have ever know to have eaten pizza, gossiped about my
classmates in the middle of the night, snatched a piece of chocolate and ran
from us, watched animated 3D movies and the only one that made me who I am
today.
They say when people leave they go to a better
place. I believe, with every fiber of my being that she is happy wherever she
is, because I know she is right here with me. People say you have to move on,
but I know it is impossible, you can never move on from losing someone who is
the essence in your life, I know it will never stop hurting, that gap will
never fill, and that emptiness will never go. But maybe someday I will be ready
to move forward, move forward with that pain and accept it.
Ajji,
Words cannot explain how I feel about you. Words are
not sufficient to describe my love for you. You define love for me.
In short, to me, YOU ARE LIFE.
“If my life was a photo album, you would be there in
every single picture” and I know you will continue to be there forever till my
heart stops beating and even after that. Now I live just to make you proud and
happy and live with the faith that someday we will be together again.
Dated,
Till the day I join you.
