“I feel like I haven’t heard your voice for so long,” she used to say whenever I called her.
My flight to Guwahati was just about to take off when a text came on my phone. “Sakira passed away at 4:40 AM this morning.” It was from Wasim, Sakira’s husband. I knew Sakira’s hold on life was precarious. I was praying fervently that somehow I would reach in time to hold her one last time, but it wasn’t to be. When I finally reached home, she was gone forever. I hugged her daughter, mumbled some words to Wasim. Then I hurried in to her room, because I felt as if I could somehow get some essence of her there.
Sakira’s sister was folding away her clothes. I sat on her bed, looking at her books on the bedside table, her photographs on the dresser, her piles of neatly ironed Fabindia salwar kameezzes, the powder-blue scarf I gifted her, her perfumes, her sandals—everything so meaningless without her. I looked at the sunlight streaming through the large French windows in her bedroom:
“Priya, I told Wasim not to install grills on these windows. I love looking down the hillside from here,” she once said to me. She lived in an apartment complex atop a hillock overlooking the city.
“But that’s unsafe,” I said.
“Oh doesn’t matter. No one can enter through here. I have always dreamt of staying on top of a mountain. This home is dream come true for me.” We had spent many evenings sitting on her balcony, looking at the lights twinkling in the houses in the hillside, sharing each other’s dreams. That’s what connected us the most—talking about our most fantastic, even ridiculous heart’s desires. Even if we knew they could never come true in this life-time. We loved each other without judgment, we trusted in each other’s dreams.
She nagged me forever to start writing. “Why don’t you write, Priya?”
“Because no one will read. Who cares what I have to say?,” I would say to her.
“I care. I will read,” she used to say.
I did start writing after she passed away. In fact, I have been writing like a person possessed—I am unable to stop. I tell myself that she must be reading from wherever she is. Writing distracts me from pain, from having to deal with the fact that life is hard and life without someone whom you loved, is almost unbearable. I don’t know why they say ‘time heals’. Because with every passing day, I feel more despondent that I will never see her face or hear her voice again.
How completely taken for granted her presence was in my life. We were friends for nearly twenty-five years—I never thought I would have to learn to live without her. Sometimes, we had disagreements, egos clashed and I spent months without talking to her. What a terrible waste of time.
I spent a month with her after her diagnosis, she would not let go of my hand even for a moment. She said, “I worry that I wasn’t a good friend to you, that I wasn’t around you in times when you needed me.” I said, “We’ve been friends for so so long—it is impossible to not fail each other sometimes. I must have disappointed you too. But that doesn’t matter, we are here with each other now.”
We had gone through so much together—teenage crushes, the ups and downs of marriage, trouble with in-laws, the struggles of having children. We could share our worst fears, our most guilty pleasures and be assured that we would find complete acceptance. After her diagnosis, we even discussed death—not in a morbid, depressed sort of way, but more as something we didn’t understand, as something we were now forced to confront.
She asked me once, “What does this mean Priya? Why am I going through this?” Ever since I knew her, she always asked me “What does this mean?”–meaning In the larger picture of life, how does this experience fit in. She experienced life deeply and she forced me to think deeper too. It was perhaps these kinds of questions that led us both to read and discuss the writings of Eckhart Tolle, Louise Hay, Brene Brown, amongst many others.
But confronted with Sakira’s illness, everything I had read failed me. Despite putting up a brave front to her, I was an emotional mess. I didn’t know why she was chosen to have Stage IV Brain cancer at the age of thirty nine. Her two daughters were so young, she was at the cusp of a brilliant career, spiritually and emotionally she was at a better place than she had ever been. Why her? Why now? When she asked me what this illness means, I said, “I don’t know, Sakira. What do you think it means?”
She thought for a long while and said, “I think maybe my life is meant to be an example to you and everyone else that we should be grateful. There is so much to be grateful for. I wonder if I was grateful enough.” I count my blessings every single day now. Where I was once a storehouse of complaints and negativity, nothing really fazes me anymore. Once we start keeping track of all the precious things that we may lose, we realize that life has blessed us with enough and more.
I am so grateful for the time I spent with her after her diagnosis. We listened to music, we discussed books, we laughed so much. Every time I sat with her, she held my hand and we spent the whole time bantering, listening to music and laughing. We both knew the clock was ticking but we didn’t spend those moments being morbid and sad. She showed no fear of death and I drew strength from her strength. We shared no tears, only joy.
Now that she is gone, strangely I walk on lighter ground. My grudges, resentments, and anger on people in my life have dissolved. Buddha says, “the problem is you think you have time.” I hadn’t understood the unshakeable truth of those words until I was confronted with Sakira’s death. We postpone our dreams and we neglect our loved ones because we think we have time. Sakira taught me that life is short. And if I keep my mortality as front and center of my existence, life becomes simpler, lighter and more joyful.
I have lost her forever, but her friendship is a gift that keeps giving. My life is richer because of her.
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