Search This Blog

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Nine Months

My Darling Shahdi,
It has been thirty nine long weeks since you hastily decided to leave us. It has been thirty nine weeks since I started shedding tears every single day over your unexpected and heartbreaking exit from our mortal world, and have not yet stopped. Traveling back in time to 1993, I clearly remember the thirty nine wonderful weeks you spent in my womb, being my inseparable companion, growing bigger week after week, sharing my every breath, hearing my heartbeat every second, getting used to my voice, and making me super joyful with your presence.

I vividly recall how I was filled with happiness and anticipation on the December morning when I went to the Bryan Memorial Hospital to welcome you to the world - outside of your mother's womb. When I went into labor, I did not know whether we were going to have a boy or a girl. I did not want to find out earlier. I wanted to keep the element of surprise. And, what a great surprise it was, to give birth to one of the most beautiful infants ever born! Your beauty shone even as a newborn and all the nurses in the maternity ward told us that you were the most beautiful baby they had ever seen. How thrilling it was to hold you for the first time in my arms and to bestow kisses on your soft rosy cheeks. How blessed we were to be able to bring you home on Christmas Eve 1993 and watch you grow over the next nineteen years into an intelligent and stunningly beautiful young lady.
What a difference between those thirty nine weeks and the thirty nine weeks since your passing. The former filled with joy, happiness, hope, dreams, excitement and anticipation; the latter with despair, overwhelming sadness, grief, hopelessness, resignation, disappointment, and constant longing. What a difference indeed!
I had thought about you every single day when you still were an unborn child, thinking about how you would look like, how you would turn out, how Arman would interact with you, how our lives would change having a second child, and how the future would unfold.
I have thought about you every single day and hour since your passing, thinking about how even death could not alter your beauty as you were lying in your white coffin on the day of your funeral, with a red rose in your dark hair, like a sleeping beauty; how your life did not turn out the way we had envisioned and planned it; how you and Arman had grown to love one another; how Arman would now be deprived of your love and friendship for the rest of his life; and how we failed to protect you from this dreadful invisible disease that had affected your brain and was torturing your soul. Forgive us my love for failing to protect and save you. I wish I could have kept you in my womb forever, out of harm's way. You could have stayed in that warm and cozy place, feeling the love and security in your mother’s womb for eternity.
The difference between these two 39-week periods is like the difference between heaven and hell. It is shocking and unbelievable that the threshold between life and death can be crossed in less than a second. I just hope you are now in a better place, free of worries and anxiety. If we knew you were at peace, enduring our longing for you would have become so much more tolerable.
Nine months have passed but it still is difficult to admit and accept that you have disappeared forever. Had your life path followed your earlier plans, you now were about to start your third year in college, probably at Brown University to be close to your beloved brother. Shahdi joon, you would have been a natural as a human-rights lawyer, although I am sure you would not have accumulated much wealth as one because, with your kind and compassionate heart, you would have mostly offered your services pro-bono! It is heartbreaking to think of how hard you worked all your life to be a top student and to see all that talent and effort cease to grow and be productive. Alas, what a pity! What a loss! What a tragedy!
I will love you my darling sweet Shahdi until death joins us together once again. RIP.
Love,
Mommy

No comments: