' Losing India '
I was staring at five or six pieces of bread, toasted with butter and marmalade. It was left untouched after a hasty dinner of eggs and that. We did not eat much of the bread as it did funny stuff to sugar levels. I suddenly had this picture of hungry street children in my mind as I took a puff of the usual smokes I have after a meal. They are probably begging for food now somewhere, and the bread in front of me is slowly being nibbled at by ants.
We indulge. We waste. We lose. We regret. We learn. And we start over.
Today is a sad day. We lost a baby. We had once fought over 'India', that's the name I wanted for the baby. The whole bunch thought it was weird. India. I will call her that always.
The lady doctor said she wished she could explain why this happened. She wished she had the answers, she said, as she looked at the pale, stoic face of my sister. I remember sweating profusely as I listened to the doctor say those words, 'embryonic demise'. 'I no longer see any cardiac activity', she said. I began to feel blood shooting up my face, but I did not want to show the grief setting in. Or I did not want to believe it was happening. I stood, gave my sister a hug, and told her, maybe it is God's way of telling you 'not now', that you are meant to join your husband abroad, that you need to be ready for India. What could have I said at that point?
We indulge. We treat ourselves with too much bonuses we think we are entitled to, that we forget our choices bear on others. We waste. We do not value what we have now, and just shrug off all that is in front of us as 'givens'. Time, togetherness, laughter, quiet moments, hugs, shared pillows, selfies, food, holding hands, to mention a few of those we are blessed with. We lose. Relationships, ties, respect, trust, we even lose ourselves along the way. We regret when we realize we were 'too much', play around rationalizations in our mind to justify what happened.
But we learn. That while it is important to love ourselves, we have the choice to stop at some point if only to give room for others in our lives who matter, some room. That the universe is not about just 'me'. That there are others beyond 'me', who care, who love, who even across the seas do not fail to give us bearhugs.
And we start over, with the lessons. Perhaps think about the pieces of bread swarmed with ants, that we just left untouched after indulging, wasting, losing and regretting. Sayang. We grieve, but we pray that we do not dwell.
We indulge. We waste. We lose. We regret. We learn. And we start over.
Today is a sad day. We lost a baby. We had once fought over 'India', that's the name I wanted for the baby. The whole bunch thought it was weird. India. I will call her that always.
The lady doctor said she wished she could explain why this happened. She wished she had the answers, she said, as she looked at the pale, stoic face of my sister. I remember sweating profusely as I listened to the doctor say those words, 'embryonic demise'. 'I no longer see any cardiac activity', she said. I began to feel blood shooting up my face, but I did not want to show the grief setting in. Or I did not want to believe it was happening. I stood, gave my sister a hug, and told her, maybe it is God's way of telling you 'not now', that you are meant to join your husband abroad, that you need to be ready for India. What could have I said at that point?
We indulge. We treat ourselves with too much bonuses we think we are entitled to, that we forget our choices bear on others. We waste. We do not value what we have now, and just shrug off all that is in front of us as 'givens'. Time, togetherness, laughter, quiet moments, hugs, shared pillows, selfies, food, holding hands, to mention a few of those we are blessed with. We lose. Relationships, ties, respect, trust, we even lose ourselves along the way. We regret when we realize we were 'too much', play around rationalizations in our mind to justify what happened.
But we learn. That while it is important to love ourselves, we have the choice to stop at some point if only to give room for others in our lives who matter, some room. That the universe is not about just 'me'. That there are others beyond 'me', who care, who love, who even across the seas do not fail to give us bearhugs.
And we start over, with the lessons. Perhaps think about the pieces of bread swarmed with ants, that we just left untouched after indulging, wasting, losing and regretting. Sayang. We grieve, but we pray that we do not dwell.
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