Life Goes On

Things happen. It is said that everything happens for a purpose. It made me wonder what purpose could a young six year old, Sonia find in her mother’s death. She stood in a corner of the room, dressed in plain white shalwar kameez staring at her mother’s remains. Sonia’s eyes were clouded with tears and her lips quivered with fear.

I could imagine a storm of thoughts going through her mind. Was she trying to find a reason for what had happened? How could I make her understand? I walked up to her, making my way through the crowd in the room. She stood there unnoticing my presence next to her. Perhaps, she was lost in her own world. I took her hand in mine and said, “Do you know what has happened?” My voice startled her and she looked at me with quizzical eyes. “Is my mother gone forever?” She said in a shivering voice expecting me to say “NO” in return. I hugged her closely and curled my fingers through her hair. “Your mother is with angels in heaven.” “Why did she have to go? She always called me her little angel.” I did not know what to say to her. I wiped her tears and curled her into my lap.

Sonia’s mother was my Aunt. She had suffered from breast cancer for more than three years. She was treated many times but was never able to recover completely. Sonia’s father had passed away three years before her mother’s death. He had a sudden fatal heart attack that he could not survive. Being only three at that time, she vaguely remembered him but her mother was her whole world.

“I worry for Sonia sometimes. What will become of her after I am gone,” my aunt said to me once. Her words echoed in my mind as I felt Sonia’s tears soaking my shirt as she put her head on my shoulder and wept. “I want to go near mommy,” she looked at me with painful red eyes. I picked her up and took her near her mother’s body that seemed to be resting in peace or was her soul worrying for her little daughter? Sonia walked towards her mother and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you mommy,” she said fighting to hold back her tears. “How will I sleep at night without cuddling my head into your lap? I will be scared mommy. You know how I hate thunder storms, who will I cling onto to hide from the thunderous roar? What will I do…… there were endless questions floating in her eyes with no appropriate answers.

After all those years, it all came back to me when I went to attend Sonia’s graduation ceremony. She is now a twenty four year old young woman and a lawyer by profession. She has still not forgotten about her mother’s death and neither have I. Perhaps, she still seeks the purpose behind her mother’s death. Well, nature has its own way of conveying a message. What message was there for Sonia in her mother’s death? Did it give a young orphan girl a strange courage to face the ugly realities of life and the power to excel? Did it make her stronger than she actually was? As I said, things happen for a purpose but no one can really tell the truth behind it. Life goes wherever our imagination takes it.