Different
people from different walks of life in different parts of the world bound to be
different meanings of term ‘fighter’. I myself had varying meanings of the word
until the day I turned 14 years 1 month 18 days old i.e the 8th day
of November, 2017.
Her
snores stopped, yellowish liquid started oozing out incessantly out of her
mouth. It was as if she was empting everything left off her. Her eyes were half
shut in an eerie way and arms were flailing around wildly. I had my heart in my
mouth. I could not bear to see her suffer like that, it was intolerable. My
whole family was beside themselves looking at her pitiable state. Then
……suddenly……blank…… Her arms dropped cold, her eyes reflected the light she
could no longer see…….her face etched a smile, she could no longer feel , she
was breathing lightly….she still had a pulse….Feeling a little ray of hope
light inside all of us, my dad ringed the family doctor to come immediately.
Although
her pulses were fainting away now, and cold death was creeping deeper inside
into her, I was only praying to God not to take her apart from me so early. Not
yet, I was pleading to him to perform some miracle, some trick….but to no
avail. The doctor arrived, checked her pulse, breath and heart beat. After that, he hung his head low and declared
in a soft whisper that she was no more……….
I felt all empty
inside, I did not know what I was doing, whether I was standing, sitting,
sleeping, crying, nothing. The only thing I knew was that she left me and went
forever. I was hoping that when I touch her, she will awake from her slumber,
embrace me in her arms and comfort me that she will never leave my side. On the
contrary, when I touched her, I felt as if I was touching marble, she was so
cold and stiff and still, I could not believe that she died. She was so very
lively, she, whose voice filled our entire house. She who was gone……
I
wanted to cry, to die crying. I did not want to live anymore. After all, there
was nobody except her who had ever really loved me. She was my life and I was
hers. I wanted to show the world how much she meant to me but no sound escaped
my throat. I wept a lot inside, myself, but the only thing the world heard was
some hoarse sobs, nothing else. All that I wished now was for her and only for
her.
I
myself don’t know how I have scraped through thirteen long and lonely days now.
I don’t even know how I will live my life without her. Her last wish was that I
study hard and achieve fame in my life, and you bet I will fulfill it. I cannot
even dream of letting her down.
For
me now, the term ‘fighter’ has only one meaning and that is my ‘fighter
grandmother’. Losing her mother at a mere age of nine, her dearest brother the
day her board results were to be announced, and her father shortly after her
marriage, she suffered a lot. But she fought bravely; she never shed a single
tear all her life. She had both her knees replaced when I was very young and
she never let me feel that she was going through pain. After being diagnosed
with 3rd stage ovary cancer, she was broken, but as always she
fought for two hard years. In the end, she was a living miracle, what with
having a cancer relapse, diabetes, severe cough, ulcers, thrombosis, slip disc
and many more insidious problems. She fought through it all like a lion.
She was the bravest.
She was the noblest.
She lived double the time the doctors had
presumed.
She was ‘a true fighter’.
She was my grandmom.
-
Khushi
(In a tribute to my fighter grandma who fought against
every disease like a pro.)
