“Have you seen the clear sky?”
“I see it every day, why?”
“I mean have you actually seen it, observed its beauty, noticed its vastness, linked it to life and imagined the possibility?”
Darika looked at her bedridden grandmother who was still looking outside the window. Mrs Chauhan was in her late eighties. A fever was enough to send her resting on her bed for a week. Darika was twenty-six and was quite attached to her grandmother. She loved spending time with her.
“I know you young people know more, but sometimes I feel that element of magic is fading away from life,” said Mrs Chauhan
“Maybe the trick is over,” smiled Darika, “Besides maybe one day I will feel the same way as well.”
Mrs Chauhan did not answer, the Sun was setting. Darika looked at the watch, it was time for her grandmother’s favourite sitcom. Darika switched on the television and walked out of the room. She spent some time working on her laptop, some deep emotions passing in her mind till the tears could not be withheld.
How prepared we truly are to accept someone might not be there one day, many of us don’t like to think about it, till there is no other option but for Darika the feeling was slowly getting to her. Most of her friends didn’t have grandparents so Darika always knew it was something special to share this life with her only living grandparent, her grandmother. But since one of her friends lost her grandmother, Darika could not ignore the feeling that this will happen to her as well one day.
She tried everything, drowning herself in work, going through her favourite shows online, and tried to learn guitar as a hobby. But the feeling wouldn’t go away, no one knew about it, only she did in her moment of loneliness. It was becoming difficult with time; it was becoming more difficult to talk about being together after a few years or even a year. Every time her grandmother took to bed, Darika would wish to see her up and smiling the next day, all recovered.
There is a term for it called ‘anticipatory grief’. When mind and heart realise that something that might severe a bond that matters beyond possible recovery could or would happen. It begins to look at the emptiness waiting outside at the door.
Darika slowly walked back again to her grandmother. She sat on the chair beside her bed and she held her hand. She still had time to make most of it. both of them sat watching the sitcom.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 
One response to “The Unavoidable Change”
Very nice.
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