Moving on with Memories

I always have had the notion that life cannot be lived until one goes through sadness and hardships. It is hard to accept this fact but there it goes again – “hard”. And while the trees in the part start shedding off their leaves and I sit on this bench, under the shade of one of those trees, I drown in the whirlpool of part and start remembering those long gone memories and long lost faces.

Among those faces is a face of my dear friend, someone whose memories make me laugh, cry and wonder what went wrong. We met during our sixth grade and by the middle of the session, we became friends. We respected each other’s dreams and totally understood what went through our minds. We were not different from the crowd but then we were able to create a different world of our own. We dreamt about a beautiful, small cottage at the center of a huge field, surrounded by trees, isolated from the maddening crowd we both hated.

She and I spent out time mostly inside the library – the world of books. We indulged in this common hobby and discovered so many new worlds. We passed our sixth, seventh, eighth and finally, ninth grade. Believe me; it took much longer time than this. And, then tenth grade! We were both excited about that. Well, along with the new session, many things changed. There were different and complex syllabuses. But there aroused other different and complex problems too. We changed as well. I cannot figure out when this change took place. Was it when we started to make new friends, was it when we stopped sharing our homework or was it when our goals changed? But, somehow we changed. Our meetings became less frequent; visits to the library came to an abrupt stop; conversations became mechanical. We just turned into complete strangers. The vision of the cottage disappeared and we became a port of the same maddening crowd that we loathed so much. I sometimes saw her talking to some girls, jotting down notes or simply staring outside the window. Once in a while, I would catch her glancing at me. As soon as she became aware that I knew, she would look away. I did not bother to ask her “why” because I thought I knew the reason. Well, we all change and we must accept it. I have no idea though why she did not approach me with that question. Time flew by. We were in different colleges and oblivion to each other’s whereabouts. Now and then, I would hear from the school friends and wonder what she might be doing. But I never dared to call her.

The end of grade eleven was coming near. The pressure of the exams had busted all my energy. Everything was going at a fast pace. It was then, on one of those hectic hours, that I received a call. It was an old friend of mine. She sounded very agitated. She said, “Anu has been hospitalized.” The directness of the statement took me aback. Was it a figment of my imagination, had I dozed off? Was it a dream? She continued, “She fainted in the college and has been admitted in the ICU. We are going to visit her tomorrow. Is it possible for you to come?” And, I thought if it was the same Anu she was speaking about, my friend Anu, with whom my friendship had suddenly broken and whom I had not dared to call for reconciliation. I found myself saying “yes” and hanging up the phone. I looked around the room and nothing happened for a while. Slowly, my eyes were filled with water and my vision of the room became hazy. I sat on the floor, cried all night because I knew something terrible had happened.

The next day, after college, I headed straight to the hospital and saw some of my old friends waiting outside. I could feel them sympathetically gazing at me because they knew all about Anu and me. As we reached the ICU ward, the silence of the corridor pierced my soul. I could feel the pain of the patients and the air of agitation. We saw Anu’s father who looked grieved and confused, standing near the ICU door. We talked to him and he led us to the waiting room. As we neared the room, I could hear someone crying inside. It must be her mother I thought. We learnt that Anu was unconscious. The doctors stated that her chances of survival were bleak. I was horrified and I struggled to say something. After I left the hospital, I burst into tears. As the days passed by, I kept visiting her at the hospital. She was still unconscious. We were not allowed inside the ICU but the small glass fitted on the door allowed me to see her expressionless face and numb body. It was hard to look at her like that. After some days, things seemed to get better. She had regained consciousness. I was thrilled. I went to a book store with a friend and bought a book for her, with a note on it – “Get well soon and we will have a long chat.” It was some one week after the good news; I was sitting in my room. The phone rang. It was a friend of mine. I asked her how she was. Instead, she said, “Anu is no more with us.”

I have been coming to this park ever since. After her death, I imagined the world would come to an end. For many weeks, I cried and for many months I felt guilty about not calling her. Nothing seemed to make sense. But, every passing second were filled with changes. I have seen the leaves of the trees open, flourish, dry out and eventually fall. I have seen the sun rising and setting, caterpillars turn into butterflies and have understood that this is all part of our journey and things will have to move on. The loss was irrevocable but as I mentioned before, all that sadness and hardships frame our lives. Even then our lives are full of pictures from which we have to extract happiness. I have kept her memories in that picture and, moved one, with memories.