My Little Angel

Life has been fairly good to me. I have everything that a man would want from his life- successful career,
a very loving wife, great friends, nice home, good health. What more can I ask for, from life... Right?

If that’s the case, why do I sometimes feel this void, a void that fills my heart, my life, everything.
I have been struggling to fight this pain for the last 4 years, but have not really learned to deal with it
yet – the pain of loosing someone you love more than your life…

Today’s 1st of January; my little girl’s birthday. I just wish that somehow time traveled backwards. I know that’s
never going to happen, but I can’t help my thoughts and my mind to travel back in time –

Four years back, on the 1st of January, I and my wife, Aditi were blessed with the most beautiful baby girl.
We named her Pari. She came and brightened up our lives. When I had held her for the very first time I felt
like I was the luckiest and happiest person on earth. When she used to cry I would hold her close to my
heart, and she would be pacified and would fall asleep. I felt that she listened to my heartbeats and that she could
feel all the love that I had for her. Sometimes she would look at me with those beautiful, innocent eyes and
give me the most ingenuous smile. She was my most prized  possession, she really meant the world to me.
Life felt like a wonderful dream to me. Everything was picture-perfect. But this lovely part was the shortest chapter
of the story written in our fate. Destiny played its part. My little angel, at just 5 months of age, went into a
deep sleep never to wake up again. It was not just hard but almost impossible to accept the fact that my little
child would never open its eyes again. Doctors called it SIDS(Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) which is a
syndrome marked by the symptoms of sudden and unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant aged
one month to one year. Their job was done. They just had to give an explanation.

Aditi and I were in a state of shock  for months. I should say we had lost interest in life. But gradually we
started what we call a normal routine life. Still, sometimes it took  tremendous effort just to start a conversation.
We both wanted to share each other’s pain but it was really  difficult . Honestly , it was more difficult for me.
Aditi tried to talk  about starting afresh, or just cherish her as a sweet memory or things like that but it was
just too hard for me to do that.
I could not let her go. How could I ? I loved her so much.How could God do this to us?? Why me??These questions
kept bothering me. I was haunted by feelings of emptiness , anger, disappointment, discontent and frustration.
But all  these , I would not allow to show up in my behavior. I was fed up of people’s words of sympathy, and
unwanted advice and so ,on the surface , I had learned to keep calm and just wear a smile.

My cell phone rang, and suddenly I was pulled back from the maze of my thoughts and memories and
brought back to the present moment. I answered the phone; it was Aditi asking if I would pick her up from her clinic.
I agreed and also promised to take her on a nice long drive, and then for dinner to her favorite restaurant.
I love Aditi a lot and I have promised myself to take good care of her, no matter what. In fact, we both have
accepted this as an unspoken rule to respect each other’s emotional privacy. We both are trying our best
to keep each other happy; I must admit, that Aditi is doing it much better than myself. She is a sweetheart.
Whatever little smiles and laughter that I have left in my life is because of her.

I got up, left my office and walked towards the parking. I was not thinking much while I drove. I had slipped in
a blank mode, where I cease to think or feel anything. I reached Aditi’s clinic, she was already waiting  for me.
She gave me her magical smile, which brought me back to senses. She looked different. She got in the car,
and fastened her seat-belt. And, we started for a long drive. I could sense that she wanted to say something.
I decided to wait for her  to say . And after 5 minutes of silence, she took my hand in hers and said “I can see
that you still miss Pari a lot, do you want her back  ?”  I could not believe my ears, we had been trying  without
success for almost a year. And we get this fantastic news on the 1st of January. Is this some kind of a miracle??
All I could say was” Are you sure??” She smiled and said  “Come on Abhi , I am a doctor.” She gently leaned on
my shoulder, and I felt like I was once again the happiest person on earth.