Gosh!! NINETEEN YEARS….how time has passed us by and yet the memory is still so fresh. How life has changed since then and how some relationships seem to be getting worse.
My first semester at University in a new country was going just fine, and I was settling in slowly. March 16th, 1998, I had a very uneasy feeling that day, and something made me call my answering machine. My mother had left me a voice mail, and after hearing it, everything went silent around me. I do not know how I made it to my friends house, I called home immediately. My Abajaan had passed away. I broke down, and the uneasiness got worse. I was alone in a new country, no family around me. I could not mourn as I had to go to my classes. I had to learn the ways of the world without family during a loss, and that was the toughest lesson of life.
His last words to me before I left India, “This will be the last time I see you. I hope you do well in life.” Those words haunt me even today. Life is so fragile. We don’t understand it when we are young, but when I lost a friend in seventh grade I knew I could not take life for granted. Life did change for all of us after he passed away. Things have never been the same, and relationships have definitely changed among the family members. It has taken me almost twenty years to realize that family members can become strangers, and that is okay. You just have to let them go for your own peace of mind and move on with your life.
So what I have learned as I have grown in the last two decades. Spend time with those you love and with those that reciprocate that love. Delete those who don’t have the time for you, they are really not worth it. I have no regrets in my life anymore, and live each day creating memories for my son. I will do my best never to say “I wish I had visited them while they were alive” and make it a point to visit my loved ones while they are still around. So live, love and laugh….life changes in a blink of an eye.
americabydefault 