A SURVIVING SOUL..

The morning sky was presenting a clear vision of the sun shining amidst a few clouds. She just kept staring at the sky, lost in her messed up thoughts and not knowing exactly what she is thinking about and not even bothering to brush aside the strands of hair that lay fallen on her face.

“Jenney... Jenney... Jenney, are you even hearing?” her aunt’s voice distracted her thoughts bringing her back to the hell of reality. The air around her was full of wails and weeps, which had a latent ability to make any person depressed.

‘Yes. What?’

‘Some people inside wants to see you. They are leaving it seems.’

She nodded reluctantly and sighed as she walked into her house following her aunt. She didn’t wanna face anyone or talk to anyone. Specially, she didn’t want any of the stupid advises of sympathy she has been listening to for the past 6 hours. As she walked into the house, she glanced at her mother’s corpse and felt a chill run through her spine. She wanted to cry her heart out but she did not.

‘Jenney, we’re leaving. Please take care of yourself and your dad. Don’t worry; we’re all here for you.’ said one of her mom’s friends wiping the tear drops that appeared at the corner of her eyes.

‘That’s fine. Thanks auntie.’ She faked a smile as they hugged her bidding byes.

Once they left, she moved out of the house and sat on the stairs as she badly wanted to stay away from the crowd, her dad who was clearly devastated by the loss and the corpse of her beloved mom.

As she sat in isolation, she kept thinking about the times that were well spent and the times that could have been by the three of them as a family. Growing up without a sibling is really tough for anyone.

She spent the rest of the day sitting in a corner of the stairs, answering many people, avoiding many others with a clearly fake smile and so on. Even her buddies and besties were no exception. All that she preferred was silence. As soon as evening arrived, the most difficult things showed up. The rituals for cremating her mom began. All through the funeral, she fought back her tears and managed to keep every ounce of pain within herself.

‘I should try to remain strong. I shouldn’t cry.’ she thought to herself.

Still she could hear a few people saying, ‘How can this girl not even cry?’

‘She isn’t matured enough to realize what is going on.’

‘Maybe she isn’t that close with her mom.’

‘Jenney wouldn’t have got enough of love she needed from her mom.’

Some people never stop judging others. But she was so not in a situation to give a damn. Once the toughest part was over, many people left and only a few close relatives stayed back. Jenney quietly slipped herself out from others, went to the terrace and sat in silence. It was noiseless around her, but inside her head there was a complete chaos. She couldn’t just accept what happened. This time it was her dad who distracted her from her thoughts.

‘Quite a rough day, isn’t it?’

She just nodded back without uttering anything. Words were curtailed for a few more minutes and then her dad broke the ice.

‘Look Jenney, I know that it’s too hard for you to bear all these. I did every possible thing to save your mom. Spending all the money I’d earned and saved till now, giving the best treatment, nothing worked. Cancer won the battle, we lost. I don’t know if I can perfectly not make you feel the absence of her, but I’ll try my best. Do whatever makes you feel better. You’ll always have me backing you up.’

‘Thanks dad. I know what all you did for mommy. You made her feel really lucky.’

Her dad smiled and stood up to leave. He turned and said,

‘You don’t have to hold back your tears for anyone.’ She returned a smile.

Once her dad left, she spent the rest of the night at the terrace wide awake replaying all the memories. Honestly, memories are the sweetest things to deal with until you have pain associated with it. After a couple of days, she had to go back to college.

‘That’s yet another terrible thing. People would remain ready to annoy me with pathetic looks and talks.’ she thought as she was getting ready for college. As expected, once she entered the class a bunch of people gathered around her asking if she was okay.

‘Will you all stop?’ her friend Clara stormed in.

‘Seriously, have you all gone insane.....’ she continued to scream at the top of her voice until all their classmates left from there rolling eyes at her.

‘Feel free Jen!’ she said as Jenny smiled at her heading towards her desk. They were a gang of seven which includes Jenney, Clara, Hannah, Emily, Ethan, Jake and Steffi. Each and every person among them shared a pellucid friendship. They never ceased talking and having fun on any day. On the contrary, Jenney had been acting cold towards every one of them ever since she came back. It had been over a week and they didn’t know how to handle that either. So they decided to talk it out to her and went to her home after college. They all sat in the terrace, incessantly looking at each other’s faces not knowing how to begin. Finally Steffi began,

‘Jen, what’s wrong? Why have you been acting strange with us?’

‘Not really.’

‘Stop lying. We aren’t fools.’

‘No Eth, I’m not.’

‘Come on Jen, did we do anything wrong?’

Everyone thus began questioning the same thing in different ways. She let out a sigh and answered,

‘It’s because you people were feeling awkward when I was around. You all were confused if being sympathetic was right or joking around me would be fine, weren’t you?’

‘Sorry dude, we were confused after all.’

‘I know Clare, just forget it. Be normal. That would be fine.’

She put on a smile which seemed almost normal to everyone around. All her friends exchanged a hurried look and Emily started off with a conversation. They joked around and chatted for a couple of hours and left. Jenney spent some more time there and returned to her room. She opened her cupboard and took out a notebook.

She opened out a fresh page and started writing.

'Yet another day and everyone around me thinks that I’m hurt. But that’s not just the thing. People only know what happened; no one has any idea about what I’m going through. My buddies want me to talk to them and make them understand. Hardly do they know that the only way to understand this pain is by going through it. I wish nobody else ever gets to realize this pain. It’s more like shattering you to every possible piece and asking you to put them back and dwell in normalcy. Others think that it’s not an ordeal, but only you know that you’re irreparably broken and you have no option to mend yourself, the only way is to pretend. Even a few of them say that losing a parent is something everyone goes through, why do you make such a big fuss out of it? The thing is that pain differs from person to person. Those who ask us to move on have no idea that there is no such option and the only way is that we have to learn to live with it, which indeed would take a lifetime for some of us. Because, when you try to distract yourself from the pain, the more it sticks to you. Every minute thing reminds you of the departed soul, piercing your heart. These wounds never heal completely; sometimes they bleed repeatedly and hurt brutally. And on some days the pain is worse than the day it all happened. But you should never let this pain to turn you into something that you're actually not. Having understanding people around is a blessing. But most of them don’t. As someone said,

Do not speak about your happiness in front of a sad person.

Do not speak about your freedom in front of a prisoner.

Do not speak about your health in front of a sick person.

Do not speak about your mother and father in front of an orphan.

Because, their wounds cannot bear more!

Some people around you will never understand this. All that you have to do is keep surviving, for that is the only choice you’re left with.'

She completed writing and was about to close her diary when she saw her name in the front page which said JENNIFER VERONICA in bold and stylish fonts. Below that she wrote ‘A SURVIVING SOUL’ and closed it with a smile.