There, she
was lying.
Beautiful as
she’s always been. Ney! Even more.
Her long
silky hair was dangling as a willow tree touching both sides of the casket.
Smiling she was like a happy bride. In her smile I read a message of peace as
if she wanted to tell me that heaven is a welcoming house.
She was
happy. I was not!
I was looking
at her peaceful face sadly knowing that my life is no longer life. Her death
vanished away all the colours from existence. Her death only left the shades of
some pleasant memories. Now everything is dark.
In her last
days, cancer was eating her up. She didn’t want me to know!
She made
everyone swear not to say a word to me about her breast cancer. “She is doing
very well in her exams so don’t tell her. This would affect her studies,” she
often told them.
I had a
feeling that everyone was hiding something from me. They knew about her. They
knew she was saying goodbye. She was enjoying the sunny days for the last time
in her life. They knew. I did NOT!
“It’s just flu, sweety,” she told me every time she glanced skeptical questions
hovering in my eyes. “It’ll vanish in days.”
It did
vanish but it took her away. Cancer, that ugly and deceptive flu, took my mother away.
“Why?” I
sobbed over her silent body. “Why didn’t you tell me, mama. I could’ve been
nicer to you. I could’ve worshiped you, my goddess; kissed your soft hands for
hours and hours.”
That moment,
I thought of many things I could have done before her disappearance; many things I wouldn’t
be able to do anymore.
“You can
pray for her now to make her grave a pleasant place,” said that religious man in
her funeral, “She needs your prayers.”
I had no
choice but to believe him not because of his pious appearance but because I
wanted to do something for my mother to atone for my mistakes. “It’s not really
goodbye,” he asserted me. “One day you will both meet in heaven where you will
have an immortal life to live, and then you'll be able to do all the
things you could’ve done, son.”
