GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

As I write this my mind is filled with a kaleidoscope of emotions, something that is filled with a twinge of sadness, remorse and melancholy but at the same time strangely, I’m smiling too because that is what happens everytime I remember my little cousin Wapanginla and she would have loved to see me in good spirits always, if only she were alive. Diagnosed with cancer at an advanced stage last year, Wapanginla, my paternal uncle’s only daughter, was someone who could endure the greatest of pain with the sweetest of smile. You would have loved her the minute you met her. Everyone loved her because she was so different from the rest, so different from any of us…
Her ability to endure pain sometimes scared me and as I reflect I believe that she was God’s special child and that is why she left an indelible mark in everyone’s life that she touched. She knew her bleak prognosis pronounced by the doctors at AIIMS and Apollo Hospitals and always slept with a Bible underneath her pillows. She missed school initially, but later as her condition deteriorated, she didn’t want to meet any of her friends or well-wishers because it was just too much for her frail emotional state and tears would well up her pretty almond shaped eyes.
Very often she would wake up in the middle of the night and cry out aloud. We let her be because we didn’t want to disturb her moments with herself. ‘Does it hurt to die?’, she would ask. ‘I don’t know,’ I would answer. ‘I don’t know because you are not going to die,’ I would repeat. And we both knew that I was lying.
This whole year was spent shuttling between Delhi and Dimapur for her treatment but ironically those were her happiest days because she visited all the places she always wanted to and ate everything she wanted. Most were weekend breaks for her chemotherapy sessions and the only times I get off from work. Her parents would most often be left behind in their rooms while, despite her delicate health, she would insist on making countless trips to Sarojini Nagar for pani puri, McDonalds (and that too only at South Extn) for french fries and PVR Priya for movies. She loved South Extn because that’s where my favourite bookstore ‘Landmark’ is located and we would spend countless hours browsing the new arrivals. She loved reading and during her last days when she could not read any longer, I would read aloud storybooks and she would listen with her back towards me. She would, at all times, sob behind my back.
Friday was her favourite day because that’s when we met and Monday was the day she would feel lonesome. Till today I fail to understand the extreme fondness she had for me, so much so that at the end, even in her delirious state, she would take her medicines only after I tasted them and pronounced that they tasted like chocolate. Countless hours were spent in making plans for her birthday (Nov. 7th) and for Christmas. But that was not to be. She died on 22nd Sept just few weeks ahead of her fourteenth birthday. It was a Monday and I was halfway on the highway to Kohima. Her mom later said she thanked me in her last conversation and not to cry over her … She left behind a myriad of nostalgic memories, some happy, some sad but all special. Gone but not forgotten, her death has made me realize that life is short, that I should not take things for granted; her death has taught me to live…