Evening Musings (cont...)

(Just now, a continuation for the story came haunting me and deprived me of a timely dinner...!!)

She was the one who broke the stalemate, the unsolicited silence. A silence for an unknown reverence. She said, “Let me show you some cute photos which will not escape your senses soon.” She switched on her digital SLR, and before I could peek at it she flipped through the numerous photos and suddenly stopped at one. She showed it to me. It was a girl… a girl of her age when they left our town for America. The girl looked fragile and weak, but her eyes showed tenderness and warmth… and determination which I could not figure it out immediately until I heard about her story. My friend, then, spoke few words about the girl.

The girl was the daughter of her professor at Yale. She was 13 when they discovered her illness, and her illness was terminal. She was on her third stage of bone marrow cancer. She looked sweet and loving. She possessed all the sweetness what a man could want for in his daughter. My friend told me the girl died recently, just a month before she left America for our town. Then she showed me some photos of drawings which you could invariably understand as handiworks of a girl from the styles of the sketches and strokes. One photo which captured my attention instantly and which saddened me profusely later on was a boy and a girl holding an apple together. Both the children were in absolute happiness. They were living in a world away from sorrows and struggles. Their happiness was genuine. My friend told me it’s the drawing of the dying girl on her hospital bed.

She narrated to me her words as they were: This boy is my brother Brian… He is my big brother. I used to fight with him for an apple. I will not let him eat it. I wanted to have it all all the time. When I get out of the hospital I will not be bad to him again. I will share any apple I get from mummy and daddy. I love him more than anyone else.

There was another picture in which a family of four was standing with two children giving awkward poses, and the Eiffel Tower looming tall on the background. My friend narrated to me again the words of the little girl: Daddy promised me to take us to Paris when I get out of the hospital. I like Paris. My friend Virginia has gone there. She told me it’s more beautiful than American cities. You can see my lovely brother here. He’s like a monkey… See how he wanted to pose for the photo. He’s playful but I love him more than anyone else.

(to be continued if possible…)

#posted in Facebook on 1st Aug., 2014