She was barely four years old so how was she to know, what it was like to anticipate the fate of your loved one who was in a bed, a bed not at home but in a hospital. She spent the whole week there, with a coloring book in her hand, scribbling in shades of red and green trapped among the hospital walls so blue and grey mirroring the sound of silent prayers and all the screaming but she was too obvious to notice anything because why would a 4-year-old be bothered about death and grieving? And yet she was surrounded by all of it at such a young age.

It was a bright July morning. She was finally home but little did she know at what cost. All she could think about was her mother and wondered where she was and why was she not around here. She was supposed to play with me, the kid thought. The house was too crowded yet quiet as a whisper. She was too young to comprehend why nobody was answering her when she asked one simple question- “Where’s my Mommy?”. What can they even say now? That she fought so hard to be with her little girl again but didn’t make it? How do you explain death to a 4-year-old?

The branch from the family tree has fallen. Everyone gathered here came to bid a final goodbye except the one that actually deserved a decent explanation. She slipped gently into the good night forever as if she were sleeping peacefully. Now her mother was not suffering from personhood anymore and all her troubles in the mortal world stopped when her heart did before she can say a final good goodbye to the apple of her eye- her 4-year-old daughter.

How does someone so little with little knowledge of the world is supposed to comprehend life and death? Nobody can simply tell her that her Mommy won’t play with her anymore and she might meet the same end on one fine day. That’s how the vicious cycle of life works. All she knew was Tom and Jerry where Tom gets blown up or falls of a cliff but the broken pieces of him are put back together and he survives the fall and comes back as if nothing happened. According to a kid, this is how life works.

And when she saw her mother lying down peacefully, she thought she would wake up after a while and everything will be fine, as if nothing happened. The scene was faded like her mother’s dreams to watch her little girl grow up do on waking. There was pity in everyone’s eyes when she kept on asking why was her mother not waking up. “She’s just sleeping”, someone from the crowd lied. And then she went on to lie next to her mother as she was “just sleeping”. She was pulled away from the crowd and they told her to play with her toys and wait for her mommy. That was the last time she ever saw her mother in the flesh. This was the hardest goodbye which was never said or never explained.

This memory would stab the little one like a rusted knife when she grows up and continue to haunt her as long as she can remember. There will always be homesickness left in her for a home she can never return.

The little one was not little anymore but still young and tender. She grew up, thinking about her mother all the time, so she asks again- “Where’s Mommy?”. There was no more sugarcoating the lies but the excruciating truth was also too much for someone to bear. So, they said...

She’s with God.

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