A True Fighter

                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 8^th 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 3^rd 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.)