Family short story – A Call From Heart
© Anand Vishnu Prakash, YourStoryClub.com
I was heading towards that old suburb where I had spent my childhood. It still remained the same old version of greenery and bore that natural demeanour of sublime beauty as it had been in the past. This small heaven was untouched by the vagaries of urbanisation.
A wave of memories splashed the threshold of my mind as the gentle breeze rummaged through my hair. As the day neared its culmination with the approaching dusk, I was nearing my destination.
I didn’t know why I was there once again after having parted from this place two decades ago. But something in my subconscious had risen the tide of yearning to revisit my place of birth after so many years. Though my mind was unaware of the ultimate destination , but my heart was.
The view of the distant ramshackled , rickety hut flickered in me the light of joy. This place housed my Fiza Sa-my maid whose tender heart had nursed my childhood. Nothing I knew of my childhood that didn’t feature her. Before the tide of time separated us, she was my complete world.
Now I was to meet her after aeons of time !! Would she remember me? Perhaps would she still be there? My heart thumped with such queries which might be answered in few moments.
The sagging door of the hut was left open, unguarded. She laid there on a wobbly bed at one corner of the room. But even before I could recollect myself from my wavering thoughts , I heard that familiar voice calling me. She noticed me before I did.
As a matter of fact, she was on her deathbed-something that I’d anticipated the least. The irony of the situation was that that her heart was as joyous to see me as mine bereaved with the gloom and guilt of losing her.
“Thank you God a million times to fulfill my last wish. I longed to see you my child, before I breathed my last. May God bless you.” This was all she could say me and I was too overwhelmed to get the words out of me then. I sat there with her in my lap, as her body grew cold.
Her last words and that eternal smile on her wrinkled octogenarian countenance was etched to my memory forever.She might not be there with me today physically, but I can sense her presence as the string of love has always bonded us together.
Not everything can be felt and not every feeling be comprehended but love is a bond beyond every comprehension and every coincedence. And maybe that is why I came to answer that call from her heart…
