Family Short Story – The Lost Diamond of Life
Photo Credit: www.cepolina.com
“So”…
“Are you alone here??”…
“You are very little, dear”…
“I mean where is your mother? And father???? ”
“What is your name, little boy?” Shelly was asking this questions to the theee year old boy.. Still all the questions were unanswered…and Shelly was staring in the eyes of that three year little boy…
Shelly had heard from the neighbours that he was sitting here since last 2 days and no one has ever come to visit him in this 2 days. They had also offered him food and asked about him but he was just speaking one word… mummy…mummy…
They have searched a lot here and there; for his mother but they couldn’t find her anywhere.
The boy looked hungry and pitiful; Shelly thought that she should offer him some food first. So she called him inside her house.
She and the boy went in to the main room of her flat. Her flat was of 2 rooms. One large room is used as a guest room and in the corner of the same room there is a kitchen. And another room was her bed room.
As she was not able to buy a big house and even not needed in fact, so she purchased this small 2 rooms flat after 3 years of her job in Delhi. She is living alone here after her divorce, approximately before 3 years…
Now they were in the main room and she noticed the boy, he was looking in each and every corner of her flat, like he was finding something… After a few minutes Shelly told him to sit in the sofa as she was going to bring some food for him.
She was preparing some tea and brought some biscuits for him. And when she saw him; the boy was playing with a teddy bear which was lying near the sofa. The same teddy which she had purchased for her child before 3 years when the doctors told her and her family that she is pregnant.
She offered him the tea and biscuits and he ate them. Shelly also joined him. She asked him that from where he is coming. And where are his father and mother? Now again the boy was silent. She thought that the boy is too little to answer her questions or he might be frightened.
At the night around 10:30 pm, after giving him a glass of warm milk, she told him that he should go to bed now. She told him to sleep in her bed-room and she decided to slip in the main room. So she did the same.
It was around 12:00am Shelly was sleeping soundly in the sofa. And somebody touched her hand, like telling her to wake up. She opened her eyes and saw that the boy was sitting next to her. She got up and asked him what has happened? Does he need anything?
The boy told her that he is frightened as he is alone in that room. Shelly smiled and asked with love, if he wants to sleep with her. And he said yes.
They both went in to her bed-room and Shelly made him to sleep… after 10 minutes her hands were pampering his head with love and care.
Shelly thought before 3 years if her child could have survived then it might be looking like him or would be of his age…and she might be doing the same care for it.
She was remembering everything which happened with her before 3 years…
She was in the city hospital, bearing labour pain, was yelling in the pain, crying, and remembering the god, the pain was not usual, but she could not notice this because she was having the first pregnancy…..
She and her husband were going to their house from their friend’s house. She was not feeling comfortable on that bike; she told her husband about it and told him that she might fell down. But her husband told her that its just 10 minutes way and they will be reaching their home soon.
She was grabbing the back of her husband very tightly, was afraid, controlling herself on the seat, but suddenly one vehicle came against their bike, her husband turned the bike speedily and luckily they survived…
But just few minutes later, he remarked that Shelly was not behind him, she had fallen down on the side ways of the road while he was trying to turn his bike in the speed. He ran and went next to her. In the night he could not see what has happened to her, and he gave her hand so that she could get up from there, but Shelly couldn’t……. He grabbed her in his arms and decided that they should go to hospital at first…
The hospital was 30kms far from that place of accident and so he took her to nearby clinic, and put her in to the stretcher, then he saw his hands, they were full of blood, something bad was sounding at the time. The doctor in the clinic called ambulance, it reached there in 30 minutes Shelly didn’t know anything about what was happening with her, as she was unconscious immediately after few minutes when she fell down.
She opened her eyes, she was in the hospital, in the operation theatre, lying on the stretcher… she tried to move herself and she felt a pain like something very important is broken inside her… and then she yelled in pain, her labour pain started suddenly, doctors and nurses were around her, in just 2 minutes she got the idea that the doctors were operating her for delivery of her kid, she felt a glimpse of happiness as she is going to see her child now, in some few minutes only… after a wait of 9 full months, and these much sever pain.
She was feeling unconsciousness now…the doctors were telling her to push her chid to the hole, but she couldn’t…Alas….. She had lost all her strengths…..She again became unconscious.
After some few hours…she heard some noise, she couldn’t open her eyes due to the effects of medicines, but heard all the conversation. The doctor told her family that due to that accident she had lost her child and it was a male child. They tried a lot to save the child but they couldn’t… and the doctor added that Shelly could never give birth to a child as her ovaries are damaged badly.
The incident gave her big shock; she couldn’t either cry or speak anything at time.
This incident changed her life.
Within the 2 months of the accident, she had noticed a change in her husband’s behaviour and her in-laws were also not at all treating her in a good way. She felt a kind of loneliness inside her even if she is with them…
And one day, she was in the other room and she heard her mother-in-law was talking to her husband… she told him that he should give divorce to Shelly, as she is unable to produce a child now, and marry to some other lady. She added that she knew a girl, a daughter of her friend, who is ready to marry him.
But Shelly was very confident about her husband… as she knew how much he loved her and took care for her also…. But, he pulled the rug from under her feet, when he said to her mother that he is also thinking the same.
At the same night Shelly’s husband told her that he has decided that he should marry some another lady to continue his family as he is the only child of his mother and in his family.
Shelly was expecting him to say this after hearing the conversation between him and his mother.
However, she offered him some other plans also….like… They can adopt an orphan child, or they can find a surrogate mother, or he can have temporary physical relations to a lady who is ready to give them a child after it, and she will brought up the child.
She requested hardly that she should not be given divorce… as no one is going to grab her hand after hearing that she is unable to produce a child…She also reminded him about their love… what about their love, they loved each other like anything and everything… they have dreamed a lot for their future… so what will be about it???
But no one listened… How selfish the world is???? Shelly often asked herself…If marriage is just the reason to produce a child then why people promises a lot for life time at the time of marriage… If someone cannot give birth to child even if this is not her mistake, then why the world is not ready to welcome her with warmth and love????
After a lot struggle she could not win she had to give divorce to her husband. Now she became alone… She applied for a job which is in Delhi… Shelly was living in Ahmadabad, Gujarat so Delhi was very far from her home. She decided that she can forget everything only when she is away from her mother land. She was lucky enough to get the job, as a professor in Delhi…
3 days before she went to her mother land, at her mother’s house to celebrate her sister’s weddings…and there she knew that her ex-husband got married in just 2 months after their divorce and he was having 2 children form his new wife. She felt somewhat happiness by hearing this but with tears in her eyes.
Just after finishing the weddings, today, she returned to her Delhi based house where she is living alone…… and she noticed the boy sitting besides the wall of her flat and she was feeling a mother kind of love for him… and now she is pampering that unknown child… she was feeling sleepy and slept besides the child.
The next morning she wake up, the child is still sleeping… She looked at him with love and one thought came in her mind… will he stay here with me or not? Will he go away with his parents? And sadness covered her face and she went near bed and kissed the little boy on his forehead, staring at him…
The clock rang, it was 9:00am, her office time… she thought whether she should go to office or not, she took 10 days leaves from her job for her sister’s wedding, but finding her ex-husband there, she could not control her feelings, and decided to return to Delhi.
Still 5 days leaves were pending, she can either stay with the kid or can go to office. But she decided the first option. She stayed…
She prepared break-fast and took them to the dining table and she saw that the child was standing next to her. She made him to brush his teeth and told him to take bath.
Shelly went to her neighbour and borrowed their kid’s one pair of clothes and premised them to return as and when he buys new clothes for him. They immediately gave clothes to her, because Shelly is really a gentle and very nice lady and all her neighbours knew this.
She gave the boy these clothes and made him ready, applied some oil in his hair and cream on his face, now the boy is looking very charming…
While doing all these courses, Shelly was thinking as if she is the mother of this child… They took break-fast together and at last the boy told her something… which brought the happiest moment ever for her…
The child told her in his broken, childish language that he is not having a mother; she had died when he was born…. His father is a drunker and sold him for money to some bad fellows… he was very hungry as these bad fellows were not giving him food and they were making him to beg money on the footpath… so he ran out of that place, and sat next to her flat’s wall… Now he is alone in this big world…
Shelly realised that the child also need support of someone and felt sorry for all what happened with him.
Suddenly the boy asked, “Can I stay with you, here?”
Shelly felt like, the world is under her feet… After a lot struggle she had won her life… She was feeling the pleasure of winning gold medal… She warmly welcomed the child in to her house. She hugged him tightly and felt like God has returned her his son which he took away before 3 years… She took him to the shopping, purchased clothes and toys and all other needed things for him…
She also informed her neighbours and her parents about this… She has decided that the child is going to live with her. With the help of her neighbours she completed all the legal process of adoption and she made the child of her own.
Now she is having a purpose of her life. She told this boy to call her “mummy”… and named after this kid as Swarg… It means paradise… as he is the real paradise for her life…
She brought up him, educated him, fulfilled all his needs and celebrated his marriage…
Now Shelly is of 65 and 2 kids are playing in her lap, one is Nil and one is Jiya; children of Swarg and his wife Shreya..
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