I dedicate this blog post to all the unfortunate mothers like my mother who had a child battling a terminal illness and eventually saw them fade away in front of their own eyes.
Life is cruel and the cruelty factor just hiked for our family since the last few years. Post-2010, life had veered out drastically. For a person like me, I tag a mother next to God. She is the one who has sheltered and nurtured us and got us safely in this world. Her duties don’t stop there! The bond between a mother and her baby is the strongest bond. It is the purest bond. She constructs a world full of dreams for her baby as soon as it develops within her womb. It gives her extreme happiness! Such is the feeling of being a mother. Mother is the one who knows her child more than anyone. She knows her child 9 months more than anyone could. Such is the specialty of this mother-child bond.
I always remember mother saying me that she wanted to give a better quality of life to both her children. Being the older child, I knew my parent’s sacrifices. I have seen their pains and everything they did for me and my little sister. They traded their happiness for our happiness. They never lived a moment for themselves. Such is their unconditional love for their children. They always put their children first. My mother too had a dream. Anu, my little sister was the ultimate gift of life to them. They always wanted a daughter and 6 years after I was born, God listened to their prayers and fulfilled their wish. Anu was the most adorable and doting daughter for my parents. They loved her more than anyone would. They would literally do anything for her for her happiness.
Being an older sibling, I adored my sister and would do anything for. I would help her with her homework and projects. Mother worked as a teacher and after returning back home from work, she would sit with my little sister and help her with her studies. My sister was weak at studies and smart at everything else. Mother was strict when it comes to studies. But both my parents were partial to her as she was a weak child. Once, when she was young, Mum thrashed her as she scored low in one of the exams. She caught the fever for a week. Dad was very angry then and he told her that no one in this house would raise their hands on her ever again. She was exempted when it came to studies. But as she grew up, she developed interests in designing and was hyper creative. She was good at arts, crochet, teaching and what not. She was super skilled and everyone in the family used to be proud of her. She was the cute little cousin of all the older cousins. Everyone was fond of her. She was blessed with beauty.
God was cruel when it came to our family. Our happiness was nipped in the bud. In March 2012, my little sister was diagnosed with a rare disease of the lungs called Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PH). It has no cure and could be controlled by medications only to some extent. After some point in time, even the medications would stop responding. Such is the intensity of this disease. Life was indeed cruel. It shifted different gears and of a sudden. Like all mothers, even my mother had dreams for her daughter that she would be well educated and she would get her married to a good house. But we witnessed all those dreams fading away as we heard this news. I worked in Delhi then and I still remember researching on the internet about this disease. I thought it was a nightmare because whatever I read on the internet about this disease was depressing and heartbreaking. It disheartened me! I couldn’t sleep for days and the very thought of my sister inflicted with this disease killed me from within. Mother and Father were heartbroken. How will parents react if they come to know that their only daughter, their princess, had a terminal disease that had no cure? From that day on, we started living for her. We wanted to see her happy. Despite having this illness, she excelled at her studies. She did her BA in Geography, MA in History, Fashion Designing, Computer Education Certifications and ECCEd course. She always aspired to be a fashion designer since her childhood days and that could be witnessed in her notebooks where she would randomly scribble croquis and designs. She loved art and crochet. She would flood her facebook with her creative artwork. All my friends knew about her artwork and appreciated her creative skills.
PH is a progressive disease. She battled this illness but eventually, the disease progressed and right ventricle failure developed. This added more to her sufferings. This disease internally affects the person though others may perceive you as a normal person. The only last option for these kind of diseases are transplants. The doctor had recommended lung transplant for her and we were ready for this too! But things don’t happen as we expect it. I was posted at my US office. I came back in the month of December for my Visa extension. It was an unexpected Official trip to India. When my trip to October got canceled, my sister was the most disappointed. After that, I was supposed to go back home in the month of June 2018. But I got to meet her during her last days. Our world became meaningless and our struggles and sufferings for our princess became valueless on 21st December 2017 when our princess became Gods favorite. She always believed in almighty good. When we cleaned her shelves, we discovered her letters to god where she wrote about her pain and her disease. Those letters were full of hope and she believed in miracles. Maybe God could no longer see her beloved daughter suffer and he took her at a tender age of 24. She was innocent, kind and generous. She loved kids and her loss came as a shock for many of our relatives. We only informed about her illness to a handful of close people. My sister was a braveheart and a strong-willed girl full of confidence. She detested people showing sympathy and look at her in pity. That was something that would bring her down and destroy her happiness.
You don’t know how difficult it is to live in a pain seeing your loved one’s absence. I have seen her a day old baby and held her in my arms. I have fond memories attached to her. I can’t imagine a life without my little sister, our princess. It has been a painful journey for her and I just pray to God that he keeps her happy. He never listened to her prayers or read any of her letters but I just hope he gives her all the happiness that she deserves. May she be a guiding angel for us three and shield our family. Many consoled me by saying be strong but being strong during the moment of melancholia is the most difficult thing.
Mom is the most affected because of her heavenly abode! I have been away from the family most of the time due to studies and work. Sister is the one who has always with them and has been an integral part of their life.
Does God really know a mothers Heart?!
If he did, then he won’t show a deaf ear to all our prayers and won’t betray our trust we had on him.
Why GOD?! What wrong did we do to gain such a harsh punishment of losing someone who loved so much? You took away our precious princess.
Anu, I hope you stay happy. You still live with us and we can’t digest the very thought that you are not there with us.
Your Mumma, Appa and Anna love you and misses you a lot. Please come back soon 🙁
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