A Choice By Chance

She woke up again with a harrowing pain shooting down her back; taking full ten minutes to find her feet, she gently moved towards the bathroom. It had been a redundant routine for the past few years. Ageing brought with it the steady weakening of bones, and the death of her husband and daughter put her into an eternal gloom of solitude.

After washing up, she proceeded to a small, cramped kitchen for a meagre helping of oatmeal that she prepared patiently each morning. Eating was a ritual she followed consciously to keep herself alive, awake. Thirty years of being 'happily married' ended abruptly on the eve of her fifty-sixth birthday. Her husband breathed his last after giving her her 'evening rose' and a gentle kiss on the cheek. Her daughter's death in an accident was another big blow. Following her self-made routine, after breakfast she opened the cartons labelled 'pictures' and spread the heap of photographs on the coffee table, gingerly picking each one and examining keenly. They contained an assortment of people, both old and young. Many pictures showed her smiling coyly at her husband when they were young, happy and newly married. The others were of her daughter's with gleaming eyes and a wide smile.

Slowly her eyes became moist and her expression turned serious. A turmoil built in her mind and an unrest started to gnaw her. Her marriage was the only thing that redeemed her from the mental torture she went through in her childhood. Losing her mother at two, she was solely dependent on her father, the man who abused his own daughter. She put up with it until one day she packed her bag and walked away. She took up a few odd jobs to support her education from an evening college to keep herself alive and strong. And few years later, the first real job she took post her education introduced her to the man she chose to marry later.

The sudden sound of her phone ringing in the adjacent room brought her back from the whirl of thoughts she was lost in. She stood up carefully to get ready for another task in her routine.

With no spouse and child, there seemed no meaning to her existence. Yet she breathed, ate, slept ... survived. Reason: those beautiful children whom she taught in the orphanage she worked for. Her life now held just one sole purpose: being a good teacher and mentor to those less-fortunate and extremely talented kids. She learnt it hard that life is truly a huge battle and no one really cares about it. Becoming a teacher was a choice that she took by chance, and now she's only grateful she did.

You survive only when you choose to fight hard - was her mantra.