The Journey Begins...

Short stories - THE WHEEL OF LIFE

This is life they said. Encounters and separations, and within each encounter there is a separation, and within each separation there is an encounter. I looked around me wondering where everyone disappeared to. And just like any other 9 year old child, I had so many unanswered questions. They thought I was unaware of anything; that I didn’t understand. Maybe I didn’t understand the way they did, but I understood that it was death. I saw people crying and wearing black, I saw his mother weeping and going crazy and that I understood very well. We, the children, were kept in a room and were told not to leave it. All of us mourned his death in our own way. We were silent and said nothing and sadness was filling the atmosphere. But of course, them, the grown ups, thought we were being good and well behaved and didn’t suspect that we too understood. The night came and we were still in an atmosphere that I had always remembered. “He died in a car accident.” My aunt said. “He was crossing the street when a drunk driver, driving 120 miles per hour, on a road of 30 miles per hour sent him to the other side of the street.” I was a child but could never understand how people can talk about death in a very easy story telling way. This was my cousin and their nephew they were talking about, I could not understand as a child how grown ups could take death so easy. “Yes it is so tragic. He just found out that he passed his exams and was buying presents for his family when it happened. But this is life.” My other aunt said as we, my cousins and I, were watching television in the other room. But I still understood what they talked about. “This is life”….That was what they said too when my Grandfather died. 

I was three years old then and Grandpa had just taken me to the park and was teaching me how to pronounce words as I was on the swings. My cousin kept stealing his stick and playing with it and grandpa would get angry and chase him to get it back. But when I took his stick to play with it, Grandpa smiled and placed me on his lap. I was a child but I understood the warmth in his arms and I wanted to stay there forever. I was between his arms feeling all the love he had for me. My cousin came to him and said. “This is not fair you weren’t angry when she played with your stick.” Grandpa looked at him and said “She doesn’t know she’s not allowed to touch it. Unlike you, I told you millions of times to leave my stick alone.” However, even as a child I understood what grandpa wanted to say but hid in his heart. He wanted to say “she is so special she can do whatever she wants I will never be angry with her.” It was written all over the page of the poem he wrote for me. It was there in his heart and I could feel it. Then suddenly he was not there the next day. I still remember what grandma said when I asked her. “He is up there in heaven” she said tearfully. But I knew he was dead and that I will never see him again. As a child I kept this to myself but I was always afraid of death. “He died between my arms.” Mom said to her sisters and I always did the extra work of fantasizing about the scene. Shortly after grandpa’s death, grandma died and I feared death more.  

In many stages in life as a child, I always knew what death was and I always feared it. Mom told me that I had to pray to God before I go to bed and that he will make my prayers come true because he loves children. I wanted to believe her because I had only one prayer to make. “God please don’t take my family away from me. Please keep them alive and don’t let them die”

After my cousin died, death became a pattern I had to get used to. “This is life” I was convinced. I guess this is when I too became a grown up and said what all other grown ups say about death. I was a child, that’s true but I always had a question no grown up could ever answer. “Will I ever see grandpa, grandma and my cousin again?”