If I remember correctly, I was fifteen casually going on
sixteen when Frost told me ‘something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that
wants it down’. It was the most intriguing line of his masterpiece ‘Mending
Wall’. The words jumped out at me. It is surprising they did. For a bunch of
girls in a classroom in Bulawayo
living life with the luxury of youth, poetry was story time with Mrs. Eddington
on a lazy summer day. I suppose sometimes, some words just stick with you.
I remember the line now because I’m thinking of D. We would
talk about life, boys, gossip. We met in high school in our candy-stripe summer
uniform, around break time. That would be around ten past ten of a morning. And
somewhere after the ‘hi’ and ‘hello’ and all the conversations in between, a
friendship was forged that managed to weather more than just Bulawayo-African
summer days.
It even managed to make it through the economic meltdown and
rising dictatorship of a country that was both her home and mine. Mugabe at the
time was busy building walls between races. People were moving out. To other
parts of the world.
She moved to England
and gained citizenship from her English ancestry. Four years into a new
millennium, I came back to India .
We were on different continents plunging into adulthood. Eighteen was
liberating. And excruciating. It was the wall that divided childhood and the
advent of adult life. We found a way to tell each other about our lives. I
remember a surprised uncle returning home one day to tell me the police had
noticed unusual activity on the telephone line. An hour-long call from England to a small town in North
Karnataka was suspicious. I doubt if the powers that be ever
realize that ‘something there is, that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it
down’. It might be a telephone line.
Twenty one came by and I was officially a twenty-something
veteran of the teenage years. D fell in love and so did I. Our conversations
changed too. We spoke of the future, of love and family. I told her about the little
dreams I was building; she shared hers with me. And the more things had changed,
the more they stayed the same. I suppose sometimes, some people just stick with
you.
In 2011, the first year of the second decade, she visited me
in India .
It was the first time we had seen each other since high school and we wouldn’t
stop talking. We traveled around the North. I saw the Taj Mahal and the Himalayas for the first time with her.
Soon after that her left-hand ring-finger was blinged out.
She was engaged to be married. I started plotting to get to England . I have
this vision of D looking drop dead gorgeous in her wedding dress. She would look so beautiful.
But life unfolds in so many different, unexpected ways. She
called me one day and said she wanted to chat. There was something in her voice that was different.
It was cancer.
It was cancer.
The thing you must remember, is that at first, you think to
yourself: it’s ok. She is young. They have the best doctors in England . They
have such a good support system. She is so strong and amazing. Everything will
be fine. So you chat normally about chemotherapy, radiotherapy etc. And all the
medical jargon…well it’s just jargon really isn’t it? So you postpone the plans
for England .
It’s better to wait until she is ok isn’t it?
Then the radiotherapy is done and so is the chemotherapy and
you think, well there you go. Let’s plan life. There was the question of
flowers for her wedding. I suggested hydrangeas because purple is her favorite
color.
Except the doctors get back to you and say, no. No. Wait a
minute. Hang on. Not yet. We need to operate. So you leave the question of the
flowers unsettled. But you don’t leave out hope because there are always
options.
You wait to hear how the operation went. Is she ok? They
will confirm in a little while. Right now though, all is good.
But it’s not all good because that’s cancer. In a little
while they say, wait. Hang on. We need to operate. Again.
So you hang on. And they operate. By now you’re thinking, they
have been so thorough, that everything has most definitely been addressed. She
will definitely be fine. The thorough doctors tell you to wait a bit more, just
to be sure. So you do that.
And all the while you go on living life like everything will
be ok. Let’s face it. She is young and strong and there are still options. So
you go for a coffee or a movie with a friend or even hang out with colleagues. You
talk about when would be the best time to visit England and keep plotting. Never
stop plotting.
Then what happens is that the doctors tell her, that’s it. Here’s
the thing love, nothing more can be done; you will be around for this
Christmas, but not necessarily for the next one.
The truth dawns on you, that there are, in fact, just two
options: life and death. Cancer is breaking down the wall that divides the two.
Through it all, you see her being strong and graceful, asking
you how you’re doing, what you’re going through, being there for you, when
really, you should be the one trying to be there for her. You feel guilty and
helpless. Guilty, because she suffers while you live so comfortably. Helpless,
because you are sitting thousands of miles away, unable to do a single thing that
could save her.
Then one day, a little more than a week ago, D says, “I’m
not afraid to die, Anu. I just don’t want the people I love and leave behind to
experience the pain of loss, like I’ve done before.”
I am asked: how far would you go to get closer to someone
you love?* If I were to get scientific that would be exactly 8056 kilometres from London Heathrow to Bangalore International. It’s the trip I have been wanting to take to see her.
But I will tell you what I’ve learnt in my heart. To get
closer to someone I love, I have gone as far as to break down my own walls. I
believe it’s as far as I could ever go. In her own way, D taught me that. Through
the years, we broke down the walls of race and religion, time and space. In
these past few months, I have gone so far for the people I love as to break
down the walls that stopped me from forgiving them. And I’m trying to break
down the ones that stop me from truly loving and giving back. It has not been
easy.
But D inspires me to keep trying. You should see her. She is
incredible. Some people have the courage to face the breaking of walls. They
are out there, silent warriors of this world, giving hope to the rest of us.
Frost tells me now, when I’m twenty eight going on twenty nine, ‘Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out’. I agree. And though the question of the flowers remains unsettled still, I will not build a wall that keeps out hope.
*The question 'how far would you go to get closer to someone you love?', which resulted in this blog, was asked by the British Airways. Check out their link and video: http://bit.ly/1epU8Uj .
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