Lifeboat

There are days sometimes so dark that even your eyes can’t adjust to the darkness no matter how much time you give them. You don’t sleep the nights because every time you close your eyes, nightmares so horrifying haunt you that you almost fear sleep. There are some for whom, this is what life is - a series of nightmares with barely some sunlight. But even in those nightmares, you find this one thing that becomes your lifeboat. My lifeboat was her - Sweety. She’s the only one that was ever fully and without question there for me no matter what. Whether or not she ever really understood what was happening, I would never know. All I know is she knew when I needed my feet licked or a handshake or just her curling up near my legs and sleeping. During sleepless nights, she hoped on the bed with me and kept me warm and loved. Come exam time and she’d walk with me back and forth the room while I read aloud my chapters like she was my shadow. It was almost like she was studying with me. I used to spend countless hours talking to her about my friends and my future. She is much much more than a friend or a sister or family. I guess, I never will have a word to define what she is to me. I never did fully appreciate her while she was around. It’s funny how much you realise the importance of somebody once they’re gone. She left me and took with her a part of me that I will never get back. It’s a big black gaping hole in me. 12 years of my life I spent by her side. This was inevitable. Sure. But I wish I had just a day more with her. Or even an hour more. I would never forget the last time I saw her. That last day is branded into my memory like how a farmer brands his cows. I remember how she looked at me and couldn’t recognise me at all. How she just stared at me blankly. I knew then to be honest. I knew in that moment that she wasn’t coming back this time. It’s quite a feeling when you look into the eyes of someone you love so much and realise that they are looking past you like you didn’t exist for them. It wasn’t her fault I guess. She was honestly too sick. I wish I’d stayed a while longer. Maybe I could have whispered a few more nothings in her ear. I could have hummed some songs to her. I could have done so much. But I left and it didn’t matter what I could have done. 2 hours later I had gotten some news. I had finally gotten admission in a big college. It was a college that would ensure that I had a good education and a good career. I was happy. My family was happy. I picked up my phone to call my best friend to tell about this admission but what I saw was I got a call. I got The call. It was my father. He let me know that she had left us. I couldn’t believe it at first. I thought it was all a sham. Surely, it was a joke. But it wasn’t. I told the others in the house about it and I saw how each one slowly started crying. Tears welled up in everyone’s eyes for her whether it was my little sister’s or the girl’s who lived in the building next to us for that was what Sweety was. That was who Sweety was. My lovely friendly bubbly amazing girl! It didn’t dawn on me for very long that she had gone. I couldn’t cry because I was numb. I couldn’t think of an existence without her. But it had happened. That night as I lay on my bed waiting for sleep to envelope me, it crashed. The realisation that I would never feel her near my legs when I was cold crashed into me so hard that I finally cried.

Almost a year has passed now since that day. Even right now as I sit on my bed writing this, I suddenly hope to see the door open and her sneakily walk in to sleep at my feet. Wishful thinking I guess. Even now, I often feel like I caught her shadow when I was walking to the other room.I miss her a lot but I also don’t. It’s not because she’s faded from my life. It’s because she will never fade. She’s a constant presence int he back of my mind and my heart that will never disappear. I miss her with my whole heart but thinking about her doesn’t sting anymore. It brings me joy to know that I had someone like that in my life. It brings a smile when I think that I was one of the very few lucky people in this world that had the chance to find someone that loved me so unconditionally and whom I loved just as much. She is and always will be my lifeboat and I have complete faith in her. She will never let me drown.