That date will always be fixed in my memory. In many ways, that was my first experience at a deep personal loss. At 15, though, I couldn’t comprehend what that loss felt like. All I knew is that it brought about emotions that were totally new and alien. After all, it’s only when you assign a label to an emotion and feeling that you can comprehend it.
At first, it felt like a joke. A crude one. I don’t think I really accepted what had really happened. It was the classic cycle of denial preceding acceptance.
As minutes turned in to hours and then days, set in desperation. I remember dragging mom to meet different astrologers and palm readers and what not. Perhaps, that was the death knell for my belief in such systems.
Desperation, they say, is the big brother to false hope, and like any small sibling, it tags along everywhere—maybe she hadn’t drowned; maybe she had survived; maybe she got washed up on some strange shore and was trying to find her way home; maybe she lost her memory from the trauma and couldn’t find her way back home. Bollywood drama and imagination at its best (or is it worst?)
I remember standing at the balcony one of those days and looking at the full moon. I must have
stood there for a while because my parents were worried. My sister then quietly took my hand and walked me to my bed. It felt so unreal.
How do you mourn when you haven’t seen death; haven’t witnessed it? When you hear that your best friend got caught in the waves on a beach miles away, and couldn’t be saved; there’s no real visual.
Reality as you SEE it—visceral images around you, none of that changes.
But reality has changed. The fact is, your best friend is no more. You are not going to hear her quiet voice that was far matured for her age; you are not going to take walks around while discussing all things kinds of philosophies of life; you are not going to wake her up from her impromptu afternoon naps.
You know what’s the sadder part? That you hardly met your best friend over the last few months, having had life throw multiple lemons at you. That those few times you did meet her would be the last few times you ever met her in your life.
I don’t think acceptance came any quicker in the months that followed. Probably even years. I responded the way I always do—withdraw into my shell; turn numb, and avoid facing the pain. Even if it means walking like a zombie through a thick fog for miles.
But, the mind adapts. Always. As Calvin & Hobbes say, “it’s funny how day by day nothing changes… but when you look back, everything is different.”
I don’t think this is totally true, though. Life did change for me on November 6th, 2005. It just took years to notice the difference.
Recently, my partner very sweetly pointed out that I rarely talk about her. That struck me how deep I had suppressed these memories. Something so deeply personal that it’s taken me 15 years to acknowledge the loss; harder still to write an epitaph for my beloved friend on her birth anniversary.
So I hope and pray, acceptance seems to finally be here.
Today, she would have celebrated her 31st birthday. I wonder how she would have turned out. I wonder what influence she would have had on me over the years—and I on her. Would we have retained our friendship? I like to believe we would’ve. I like to imagine that we both would have taken our own paths, but somewhere found the way back to each other.
I like to believe. That’s all I can do now, anyway.
Musings of a rambling mind 