Saw you for the first time when you were a four month old fetus, on the ultrasound monitor; being a doctor I knew you were a girl.You were a delayed Caesarean baby as I was out of station when your mom's process of labour started. I wanted to be part of the team performing the Caesarean on her, little bothered what the delay could mean to you....to tell you the truth, at that time she was more important to me than you. When you were born, you took nearly 5 minutes to take your first respiration...the paediatrician looked at me and I saw doubt in his eyes. You finally gave your first cry...I would have never forgiven myself had that cry never came by.
You were 3 years old when your mom had an ectopic rupture with massive intra abdominal haemorrhage, followed by hypotensive shock, post-anaesthetic coma, pulmonary oedema....all the complications known to medical science. You did'nt cry as you knew that she was ill but you were craving restlessly for her. You could be appeased for a while by a piece of chocolate but once the taste of the chocolate was over, you would again crave for her. When the doctors conveyed to me that her chances of survival was dismal, I sat in silence unable to believe that someone who was absolutely fine till the morning was on the verge of death now. I looked at you, still craving for your mom...I was already imagining how to bring you up alone..motherless. But Sai Ram showed to us once again that 'Divinity' transcends ' Science' and she is still here with us.
I had always complained about your noisiness..your cycling with the 2 added wheels on the wooden floor and those three endlessly barking dogs running around your bicycle( or quadricycle) but your abscence leaves a silence that is more suffocating...the clock seems to tick louder and the dogs too seem to have stopped barking. A friend had told us," When your child comes back from boarding on her first vacation; she would show significant difference, would not be the same child you left at boarding; would be more mature, more independent, forgotton you a little bit, also will love you a little less".
Ironically, thats what we want. We love you so much that we don't want you to love us as much for the truth of life is that we are here for the first half of your life, the second half is all yours. The training should begin now on. I know you'll neither be able to read nor be able to understand what I am writing today but as you grow older, learn about computers and internet,you'll find what I had written about you when you left for boarding and you'll come to know how much you meant to us.
On this day, let me tell you that you might be just another girl for this world but for us you are the world.
