Dear Death

Dear Death,

I often fool myself into believing that everyone and everything I saw fade away is gone for some vacation. I often lead my heart into believing that the next knock on my door might be of the postman bringing letters from my other halves I lost long ago. Maybe its paranoia, I used to think, but what a breath of fresh air paranoia is. Makes my naive heart beat into incredible speeds just to stop abruptly.

Having feelings is human, I've learnt. But having feelings gets so much at times that hating it is almost as easy as blinking eyes. Does this mean that I dislike being a human? Does this mean the comfort in a mother's arms, having a concrete support labeled 'best friends', the exhilarating experience of falling in love, getting married, being the one providing comfort just like your mother in the beginning are all things to be regretted?

To be honest, I never understood you until recently.

I remember when my grandpa was ill. I was young with no clue to you or your connections with human kind. It was all a fairytale for me because in those, you are supposed to live forever.

I remember when everyone was busy in managing medicines for grandpa that they forgot to push me outside and out of the 'unhealthy' zone. So, I did what any eight year old would've done on seeing a familiar face lying withered and weak on a dull bed sheet with numerous medicine bottles lining the bedside table. I just stood there. I stood there as silent as a wooden log, just listening to his ragged labored breathing.

And then I saw you. Sitting just as silent as me, but more closer to grandpa then I was.

My god, you were beautiful. So beautiful, that I thought you represented some big important business to him. But silly me didn't know your purpose at that time. Your skin was the color of expensive porcelain and that midnight suit you wore could've been mistaken for a normal one unless the silvery inscriptions that's decorated the black Canvas hadn't been there. There was blood, pieces of shattered glass stuck on your suit but you looked just as graceful as a morning's Sunshine.

I watched your pale hand caress his cheek ever so softly. It was an act of affection but the painful screech that left my grandpa's lips soon after made it look otherwise. I was ready to shout. I was ready to yell at you. I was ready to fight for the man lying in pain even when I didn't know why it was. Or you were. I remember. But I didn't. Because you’re teary eyes said something else, Death.

The thin streaks of your tears cascading down your pale cheeks were enough to make me rethink. And then you glanced at my small figure standing in the shadows of the door. I was confused, yes. But somehow the soft warmth in your eyes was enough to make me oblivious to my own feelings. I still watched you, a pained smile graced your lips and the tears still slid out in clear streams out of the warmth of your eyes. Who were you to cry for him? Was he your grandpa too? - I didn't know.

And just like that, I stood in the midst of wails and cries. All those people running after medicines had stopped completely. Some sat consoling the closer ones while the closer ones had gone completely ballistic. Then, mum told me. My fairytale life was long gone by now. A deep resentment settled itself in me. The utter betrayal I felt at that moment despite being an eight year old was overwhelming. Your beauty, your capturing attire and those tears had betrayed me. So, I blamed you. I blamed you and your cold heart for taking away someone so dearest to me when all I did was stand and watch you snatch him away from us.

I would've been in deep resentment still if I hadn't witnessed you on one more occasion. That being my aunt's. And yet again there I watched you crying. But I couldn't stand and watch it this time. I still remember I had asked you, "Why give pain if it makes your own self cry? Or maybe you fake it?"

You gave me that familiar sad smile with all those tears glistening in your warm eyes, and said "The pain is essential for the memories to fade away from the mind. Would you rather die every day in the agony of the human feelings you leave behind or remember a pain so deep that it's all you remember of before life? And for the fake part, the parent fakes nothing".

I didn't understand it at the moment. Nor did I understand it while you kissed my aunt to sleep. It was when another round of wails and cries surrounded me, that I understood the bond of love between life and you. Life serves, cares, and nurtures each and every one of her children like a mother. And then the hardest part is left for you, to make your own children learn the art of removing the old and making way for the new.

I'm sure I'll see you again. Your beautiful porcelain white skin and the silvery inked suit. In all your glory and gracefulness, I'll be watching you once again caress your child. The tears and the sad smile adding to your evergreen beauty to love your children in an indescribable way. May it be for me or someone else, I'll never blame you for this broken fairytale for you are one of it's cast members.