The Wordsmith

So I was waiting at the pathology lab in Apollo for my 70 year old grandmother's tumor's biopsy results. Anyone who has ever waited for the results of a biopsy or a bone marrow knows what an awfully tense time it is. You do NOT want it to be cancer. You wish the biopsy has not detected any malignancy. A part of you wishes they would give you the report soon so you can look at the reslt and yet another part wants time to freeze just then so you need not know the result ever and things can just continue the way they are WITHOUT the biopsy results.

So while I was pacing up and down the lab, the 8789743th time thinking all kind of pesimistic thoughts, I saw this young thin, twenty something woman walk in and ask for her report. She was asked to wait as well and we both stood in the crowded lab, two women, tension writ on our faces, silently hoping the report does not contain anything untoward causing us to go into hysterics in the lab. Her eyes meet mine and I smile. She smiles back. At that same instant the woman behind the counter calls our names. Our reports are ready.

She hands us the envelope and it takes everything in me to not rip open the envelope. With slow deliberate movements I open the report and I almost cry with relief as soon as I sight the word "benign". Nothing else in the report makes sense and nothing else needs to. I see the other woman looking at her report in a puzzled manner. Just as she looks up, she meets my eye again and I raise my eye brows, as if asking her what the problem is. I now wish I hadn't done it.

She comes to me and shows me her report and says, "Enna ezhudhirruku nu puriyardha?" (Can you understand what is written here?)

I take the report to read it. The woman's age is 30 and the report reads "acute myeloblastic leukaemia - end stage". For a moment I do not know how to react. I look at the woman who is still perplexed and waiting for me to say something.

I pause for a moment and say, "Ennaku therila.Neenga doctor kitta kelunga" (I do not know. You please ask the doctor)

She smiles and leaves and I feel devastated. In a chance encounter I now know something extremely vital about this woman's life that she herself does not know yet.

I wish there was something I could do, to give this woman more years to her life. She is 30 and married and probably has children and a whole life to look forward to. So many things to do, so many places to go, so many things to achieve. I wish I could give her some years from my life. It was so unfair, it was ridiculous. I do not even want to go into theological discourses now because it has been more than three years since I have rejected the concept of God and religion and have turned into an atheist.

Events in my life in the past one year haven't been what I would call perfect. It has been a very trying time for the me and also for the family. My resilience has been tested again and again and again. I have seen absolute highs and devastating lows and have striven hard to maintain my happy cheerful exterior through it all. It has not been easy and physically, mentally and emotionally it has been very draining and continues to be so. Not one to indulge in any kind of self pity I chose to lock everything that happened into the deep recesses of my memory, never to reach into that chamber again.

Though I have come out of all that has been happened to me a little stronger, a little wiser, I always thought given half a chance I would exchange my life with absolutely anyone's in this world. Always thought everyone I encountered was much happier and led a more normal life than I did. I craved for normalcy and routine.

For a million dollars and all the happiness in the world I would not want to be that woman.

Right when you think you have reached the lowest ebb in your existence, life comes along and gives you some perspective and makes you stronger again.