Eight hours of pain. Eight hours of waiting. Yes, eight hours. That is how long I had waited to see you my bundle of joy. Eight years I nurtured you then, seen my fledgling spread your wings and soar. Soar on wings of dreams, over hills and vales of opportunity, crests of triumph, plunges into despair. I have been with you all through. And then eight hours I again waited in front of the operating theatre. Eight hours of questions, gloom despair prayer and hope. Eight hours of unspoken questions as people darted in and out of the theater, of furtive glances towards me, of shed and unshed tears.
When eight hours of labor yielded you my bonny prince, I was over the moon. As your tiny fingers curled round my finger I was in heaven. When you clung on to my breast, your warmth in my arms flowed through my veins. I felt like a drug addict taking his fix every time I heard you cry and declare to the world that you were there, you had arrived. Yes, you were mine, made of love, and made of my flesh and blood. Mine to nurture and see you flourish. Eight hours of pain had given me you my love, my joy and my sunshine.
Every day as you gurgled, nursed, burped your way to declare your presence I watched with amazement. Every shriek of hunger, of disapproval at being neglected, of pain when you were given your vaccines have told me that you have a voice of your own. When no one heard it I heard you from within me, just as I understood you when no one could decipher your gurgles and coos. When you took your first step and fell and cried, I didn’t hear in it the cry of pain, but a triumph at achievement for your first step. I kissed you and held you close cause I was proud of the triumph and not the pain. With every formed and unformed word of yours you traversed your days in our lives, filling it with wonder, with joy. Your first word, Your first sentence, Your first day walking, Your first day in school, triumphs for You as much for me. My fledgling started to soar in the skies. Yes 8 years I saw you paint a canvas with colors of dreams, vivid colors of exploration, triumphs of learning and an occasional grey of failure.
How you enjoyed the visits to Ronald at the McDonalds. The soft serve after a hard day at school, I really couldn’t say no to you. I should have. I should have held your hand a little tighter when you broke free on the way back. I should have stopped you from crossing the road. I should have pulled you back even as I saw the car veering towards you from the corner of my eyes. I am sorry I was paralyzed and let the car hit you. I am sorry you had to bear this pain, the unconsciousness the broken bones. I am sorry my love. Please don’t be angry with me for so long. The eight hours I waited outside the OT seemed liked eight centuries. Whenever someone came out I wanted to ask if you were ok, I tried to understand whether you were. I begged God every minute for your wellbeing. Please don’t be angry with me any more my love. Eight hours have gone on to eight days. Eight days I have peered through the glass of the ITU, watching the monitors for signs that you are getting better. Eyes fixed on the various graphs hoping to decipher some pattern of hope. The beeps have been rhythmic, the spikes the same, the troughs the same. Your anger for me has been the same.
Eight days now I wait for your smile, a flicker from your body to let me know that you are fighting away the demons that possess you. The pain that wracked my body before you came is infinitesimal to the one that burst out from my heart as I see you lying there. You are my prince, my soaring eagle roaring lion. Burst out from this mist my love, just as you had burst forth from within me, crying kicking. Don’t let whatever has got the nurse bothered about you worry you. Let me hear your cry of triumph I beg you.
One more injection they give you. The graph spikes. Why are they giving electricity shocks to you? Your tiny body is jerked and the graph levels. Is that despair I hear, or is it because the beeps have stopped?
The pain that wracks me now, swaths me in sweat just as it had when you had come to me. Come back to me now my love. This silence is killing for it whispers to me you have plunged from your flight. But you can break this and rise again. And then that beep.
