Tucked Away in My Heart - Comfort

Walking to get nowhere, steps aimlessly falling upon parched ground, I pull my shawl a little closer, and for some inexplicable reason I think of you.

Nonu, I think of each time that I grew sad, how you would comfort me and have me smiling in no time at all. Like this one time when I was bothered by the sight of an itsy bitsy pup being run over by an insensitive jerk on the road, who probably fancied himself to be Schumacher. You’d seen the look on my face and driving with one hand, you reached out and hugged me with the other. I still remember the sudden stop you’d made, looked at me with your puppy dog eyes and said, “I hate to leave you right now, but leave you I must”. My heart had lurched at that. Not necessarily the best thing to say at that moment! I’d held on to the dashboard of the car as if for dear life and till my knuckles went white. I actually heard myself exhale with relief as I saw you walking back. And the smile when you came back, and with “I know this doesn’t bring back the puppy to life, but…” handed me a box of Cadbury’s Nutties – my ALL time favorite - and a small card with an adorable pup on it that said, “I love you”. Oh the rush of emotions – still as strong as it was then…no, the shiver was NOT because of the super high air-conditioning. It was a tremble of love…of being loved…

Oh there were so many times that you comforted me – with a look, a smile, a song, a hug…only today the incidents, they seem to be eluding the grasp of my fingers groping through the maze of my memories.

Why today? I reach into the corner of my heart looking for you because today I’m sad. There’s mayhem in the world. Our country burns. It's not a puppy anymore. It is people. A friend of a friend has perished in the fire and it seems too close. A renowned person died and it’s almost as if a friend did – the thought that I’ll never be able to read of her again is too much to bear – for me. I think of her family and a tear escapes the confines of my eyes. People just names and numbers to me, but vivid as life to their families are now but frames on walls; memories frozen in pictures, but melting away in tears.

I sigh, turn around, looking for you. I stretch my hand out – as if to touch you. You’re not there.
I don’t know where you are, I don’t know how you are. One time I sent you a hello on an old email ID that sent me a reply: ‘Fatal error. This user does not exist”. I searched the ever expanding World Wide Web frantically for your company. It did not exist anymore. The world had indeed widened. Only, mine had suddenly become so small it was threatening to choke me.

At the memory, a sigh of futility finds its way through lips clamped shut. Muscles give way in shoulders held back, a reverberation in a head held high. For the briefest of moments, I close my eyes.

And it strikes me - separation is death, death is separation.

And for every single being alive suffering from either, there is no comfort.