Short Story Family – Sibling care
Photo credit: amyheflinger from morguefile.com
This so happened around 2 years back. I had gone to attend my grandmother’s funeral. As people say as the new generation would call them superstitions, everyone asked our family to be extra cautious since the soul would still be dominating Earth for a period of 41 days. They asked the elders of the family, especially to take care of the kids.That was when this happened.
The very next day after the funeral,my brother along with many other cousins of mine went over to another house nearby. Suddenly a call came over to our house. Then everything happened really very fast. My dad and his brother jumped onto the bike and left. People were calling all over at our place. Finally I came to know from our elders that one of my cousins’ met with an accident. All the more later I came to know that it was my brother. My heart stopped beating for a moment. Seeing everyone’s desperate face I gathered strength.
Finally I had to console the whole gathering,out of which half of them were accusing me of having being irresponsible to having let them go,as if any of the kids would listen to me. I hid all my desperateness inside me, for the sake of others. The thing was yet we had not come to know what had happened at the accident spot. Everyone was praying that nothing should happen to my brother, half of them crying.
I was really angry when a daughter of the deceased said “God don’t let my mother take our child with her.”
I went inside a room and cried a lot. Then came out. I saw many of my grown up cousins crying. Suddenly again I head someone say,”his own sister does not have any problem, she seems so fine, look at that poor lady(pointing to my cousin), how sad she is.”
I was lost for words. In a community where only the appearances rules the mind, I was left alone. Her words did the work. It had a negative impact on me. I thought of the times I had argued with my brother, scolded him, had been rude to him. The pain began to eat me. The regret grew like a fire within me. My only wish to God was that “if he gave me a second chance, I would prove myself as a worthy sister to my brother”.
Later the phone rang. The news was conveyed that my brother was riding a bicycle and a van had come in the opposite direction and hit him, and he miraculously escaped, not ever a scar to be found anywhere on his body, although the cycle was badly damaged. The driver was teaching his wife to ride the van, in a private road away from the cops,and that he was drunk. Since my brother was unharmed after a long fight they let the driver leave.They brought my brother home and everyone was in tears and hugged him.
Later on when asked how he had escaped he claimed to be having being told to jump off the cycle fractions of second before the accident was to happen,after the cycle was hit.Everone said it was the miraculous hands of God.Even today reciting this again brings tears to my eyes and the promise to look after my siblings.
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