Friends Who Become Family
A Grateful Heart, Day 19
A parcel arrives for me, at exactly 12, noon. The man I live with is completely mystified but accepts the parcel since it has my name on it and asks me a lot of questions, which, of course, I didn’t hear, so I couldn’t answer. Then he looks at the documentation accompanying it and instantly goes into hysterical mode. He was already half-hysterical when I returned from College last Thursday with 17 books. I had told him soothingly, that I meant to return them. Soon. That mollified him.
But this time, he went apoplectic. “There is no place in the house,” he yelled, but softly. I don’t answer shouts, or even stay to hear them. I almost answered that but thought better of it. The world, as I know it, is divided into two kinds of people: those who can find space for books, no matter what, and those who term them excess baggage. For decades, I have tried to convince my late mother in law, that books are the most important things in a home. I was unsuccessful, till I started writing my own books. I see no reason to go through the whole drama again. So when he said what he did, I just gave him The Look. You know, The Look.
I have a student, called D T. She felt I needed cheering up, and we had not been able to meet for our Taurean birthdays, owing to the virus. She selected NINE books, had them gift-wrapped, packed, and delivered home.
How do I thank someone who touches my heart, sings to my soul, is part of my life? Back when I taught Communication and Soft Skills to the B Pharm students of NMIMS, this child was in class. I have taught her for a brief period of three months, approximately: but she has been a kindred soul from that time on. For months together, we do not communicate at all, then, we pick up from where we left off, and she knows and I know, that there will be no recriminations, for having stayed out of each other’s lives, for the duration. We need our space: and we don’t intrude. There is no compulsion to keep track of each other all the time.
When I think of all the beauty in my life, and thank God for it, her presence is something I am forever grateful for. I see a bit of me in her, and her, in me. I pray that every thorn in the path of her life is removed before her foot steps on them.
©️ 2021 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.
This is a response to the Monthly Prompt of Ravyne Hawke’s light-filled publication, ‘Promptly Written.’ Today is Day 19, of my Gratitude Journal.
