The dates.
That calendar.
I have been crossing out days on it, for so many days.
Waiting for you. Waiting to speak to you, to hold you in my arms. Wanting to feel your warmth, to hold you to my heart's content...and never let you go.
I wove it. Dreams of us. Together. As a family. I wove the life we would live, after you came into our lives.
You came.
White and dead.
I held you in my arms----you did not feel warm. You did not look pretty and picture perfect. you had those features i had dreamt of...your daddy's nose...my eyes...his chin...and you looked like you would be tall like him when you grew up.
Only you will not grow up.
Why? Why Pari?
I and swayam had had a huge long discussion about what we would name our baby. We had decided to name you vishwas if you were a boy----and pari if you were a girl. Though both of us secretly wanted a girl, to sweeten our lives with her tiny presence...to fill the home we had made together with laughter, joy, and everything beautiful. Who would toddle her first steps round the living room carpet...i would bathe you in a special tub. I would nurse you, put you to sleep, hold you close when you cried...i would get up and change your nappies when you wet yourself...kiss you, carry you around...be your mom. Watch you grow. Go to school...learn alphabets...
i had dreamt of you as a gift--a gift swayam gave me in love--- a gift i would give him---a daughter.but i was cursed. why what have i done to lose you?
I wanted to be able to go up to your cot and watch you sleep, breathing deeply...snoring slightly.
I wanted to see you playing with your daddy, grinning in his lap...learning to dance from him and me. i wanted to see you wetting his shirt with your susu. I wanted to feel smug when the helpless man, would surrender his little angel to her momma, because you would not sleep unless i crooned to you a lullaby.
Instead, when i woke up...all i had left was a nightmare in place of those dreams.
I came to my senses in my ward. All i saw was swayam. He was sitting with his head in his hands, clenching his fist around his tufts of schoolboyish hair.
Blinking away the haze of the painkillers...i whispered his name.
He sprung up immediately and came to my side.
"swayam...my baby?" i was looking around wanting to see a glimpse of you in his or the nurse's arms.
he did not say anything.
Just held my hand, tight. Looked into my eyes...and shook his head. your father rarely cries pari...in front of anybody...even me. but i saw his eyes---they looked dead. And they were overflowing.
I looked at him blankly, scared.
...
I did not understand. How could our baby be dead? Sharon and i had spent months talking to baby...dreaming up crazy things----crazy dreams of the parents of a newborn. Yet the gynaecologist performing sharon's operation broke the news that the baby was stillborn...that we had had a miscarriage.
Rey and taani and our friends looked dumbfounded...and taani's face crumpled into tears. Papa dropped down into a chair...he had been pacing parallel to me in his eagerness to become a granddad.
I stared at the doctor---and then shook him by the shoulder. He was supposed to deliver our baby. Not kill it.
"what rubbish! What do you mean? And what about my wife? " i was past caring about the decibel to be maintained in a hospital.
"i am sorry mr. Shekh.." i cut him off----and i was going to lung past him to see for myself what had happened...rey held me and took me away.
Sharon was supposed to be okay---at least she was spared to me.
But i knew...sharon would no longer be okay...once she heard of her motherhood being snatched so cruelly off her lap, when she had almost reached out to lift it into her embrace---and our lives.
I held her in my arms---i wanted to see her. Our pari. She was perfect. her mumma's eyes---my nose i think. But instead of the joy of parenthood----of holding my baby in my arms for the first time----feeling that this warm weight...miniature human being was my responsibility...to feel like a father---to feel that i would protect this little life with everything i have---to feel like pari was daddy's life---his star on the Christmas tree---daddy's little girl...to wait eagerly for the day she would call me daddy, her curls banging up like her mom's ---a cheeky smile innocently lighting up her face---her mom cooing to her, their faces lighting up identically---seeing my siren harum scarum sharon being nurturing...her baby girl in her arms; teaching her to walk---dance---ride a bike...
Empty. Dead.
But sharon? seeing my sharon round with my child----rosy and happy...baby talking to the lump in her belly---fulfilling her hormonal tantrums...watching her lying with a half smile on her face---fondling her bump---talking to the life she was nurturing inside her. If i"i feel like this---sharon will...break. snap. I gotta be strong for her.
When she finally regained consciousness...i had somehow been hoping that this would pass away like a nightmare...and when she opened her eyes, i would gift her pari , her eyes would light up---and a soft smile of a mother when she gazes at her newborn for the firsttime would spread on her lovely face.
But this is real.
However much i dreaded it-----the first question she asked...her eyes, puffy and heavy, bloodshot from the painkillers for the c-section, looking around, thirsty for a glimpse of her baby, was where exactly was her baby.
I stood frozen in front of that...somehow she understood.
And her face"i cant say what it became. It became hollow. Likeall life had slipped through her fingers, like grasping a moonbeam in your hand. A dream----vanishing like a bubble of water.
Our friends had been crowding at the door----unable to bear it---they fled---away from the deathbed of our baby. Leaving us alone with our dead.
I caressed her head. and bit by bit---she trembled...she shook---and tears cascaded down the front of my shirt as she held on to me...crying for the loss of our baby, her motherhood...our parenthood. our grief. We held on to each other---and cried. Cried . cried.
TWO YEARS LATER.
Today was Savera's first birthday. Savera is my niece. Darling daughter of my best friend and brother in law swayam...and my bff sharon. I had been shooting videos all day.
They cut the cake----and savi in her mom's lap looked as glad and sleepy as could be.
Thank god.
After the party was over and savi had fallen asleep in her father's lap---we were all leaving---
I saw the marble---the marble stone swayam had buried in his garden----
OUR PARI, SHE WAS NEVER A MEMORY, SHE IS OUR HEART'
It always wrenches my heart to see it----but today i smiled. Somewhere pari had decided to compensate her parents...she was not dead...she had never been born...but i think her parent's love pulled her to them---if there is something as GOD, as LOVE, she came back---as Savera.
writing after a long time. dont know if you will like it or not. hope so. please let me know how it was.😳
link to my other works-------->> HAPPY PLACE: MEDHA'S INDEX
Love Friendship Dating and Relationships
Suggestions / Comments
0