Smile because He lived…

It seems like yesterday, yet it has been three years today.

We remember it all. It is all there. Only, Ankit is not. How we wish, we can see him one more time; speak to him one more time; hug him one more time. One more time…

Only, if wishes were the horses…

We try to keep our poise, yet tears roll down our eyes.

We think of the years gone by. Years when we were all together. Years that made us smile. Years that made us laugh. Years that he made memorable.

Ankit’s memories. Him crying at the end of the school day thinking that he has lost his younger brother when he looked all over the place and could not find him; Him smiling and asking her mom why she is not as tall as him; Him telling me that instead of thinking too much, I should just do it; Him consoling me at the passing away of my parents and telling me that one day we all will be together; Him in a heated argument with someone and then a few hours later making plans for a movie with the same person like nothing has happened. Always smiling. Always caring. Always there. For everyone.

Ankit makes us cry and laugh at the same time.

Three long years, this day we said goodbye to Ankit for one last time.

Or did we?

For, he never really left us. Never.  You may not be here Ankit, but you are always with us.

In our thoughts. In our hearts.

Read Full Post »

Living in a moment

Read Full Post »

Eternity

Read Full Post »

Happy Birthday Ankit!!!

November 18. Today would be Ankit’s 22nd Birthday. Happy Birthday Ankit!!! All your friends are here to celebrate your Birthday. They celebrate it the way you started it all; smearing the face of B’day person with birthday cake. A day to celebrate and a day to reminiscence. We remember it all, with love in our hearts and tears in our eyes. We remember it all. I remember asking you about your plans for your 20th Birthday. And those words are etched in my memory forever, for that was also the last time when you left home never to come back. It hurts beyond words. We haven’t seen your smile ever since, but your smile has never really left us. We haven’t talked ever since, but we talk to you all the time now. You are not here, yet you are everywhere.

Memories. Memories are what we have now. Memories of happy times. Memories of times, life was so much fun. Seems like yesterday.

 

Read Full Post »

The Moments

Two years. It is going to be two years, today, when it all happened. It has been two years since Ankit left us. Those terrible moments are etched in our minds forever, like a bad dream. Our worst nightmare. We don’t want to re-live those moments but we can’t forget them either. They are an integral part of us now. In fact, those moments define us now. What we are and what we aren’t. We wish we had a time machine, somehow or the other we could turn the hands of the clock back. We pray and hope, as my wife does, that Ankit will come back. We do whatever we can. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that help. The hope, the wishes, the prayers… And nothing helps. Nothing, whatsoever.

We are still trying to make sense out of it. It has such a profound effect on us, instilled so much fear in us that we have still not gathered courage to call one of our distant relatives who also lost their only son under such tragic circumstances. As much as we wish, we haven’t been able to pick up the phone, call them and offer our condolences. The very thought of calling them makes my wife hysterical. The trauma is unimaginable.  Those moments have taken their toll on the lives of us all.

The moments which changed our lives forever…… The moments we will never come to terms with. The moments gone by. You can’t live in moments gone by, but you can’t live without them either.

Read Full Post »

Death of a Dream

 

 

Read Full Post »

Happy Birthday Ankit!!!

November 18. Today would be Ankit’s 21st Birthday. Happy Birthday Ankit!!! All your friends are here, Ankit. They brought this beautiful cake and we all celebrated your Birthday. This is the second year that you are not with us on your Birthday. Memories are what we are left with now. Memories. And we have wonderful memories of his Birthday, of the time gone-by. Time, we wish, we can bring back somehow or the other. Time, we will give our lives for. Time, which we hold dearly to us. Time, more precious than anything else in the world. Memories. That’s all we have now.

 

Ankit's Birthday Cake

 

I read the following poem online and your smiling face flashed across my eyes.

“I give you this one thought to keep –
I am with you still – I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone –
I am with you still in each new dawn.”

– Traditional Native American Prayer

Happy Birthday Ankit!!!

Read Full Post »

“It wouldn’t be our world without you in it.”

November 07. The day that changed it all, forever. The day that turned our world upside-down. Today is the day. Today is the day Ankit left home in the morning, never to come back. Today is the day Ankit left us forever. He was so happy when he left home. His smiling face…….

It seems like yesterday.

It seems like yesterday that Ankit was born. The cute smiling face, the tiny hands; so adorable that you can’t take your eyes off of him. It still brings a grin to our faces. We remember it all. Living in a moment. A moment gone by, but etched in our minds for eternity.  The moments, the voice, the smile, the tears, nothing has been lost. It seems like yesterday.

 

Ankit Chhibber

 

It seems like yesterday. Ankit taking his first step, speaking his first word, writing for the first time and we look at his cute face in awe as if he has done something no one else has done in this universe. Living in a moment? The moments we will give our lives for.

 

Ankit at his home in Chandigarh, India

 

Ankit: All dressed up to go to School for the first time

 

It seems like yesterday. Ankit is going to school for the first time. How happy I was driving him to school. Ankit is so happy, all dressed up. I saw it all. Ankit receiving the medal for being an Honours students; Ankit at his Grade-8 Graduation; Ankit playing Saxophone at his school concert; Ankit receiving the Medal for Science Olympics; Ankit receiving the MVP Award for Cricket at his school; Ankit receiving the certificate for being Ontario Scholar; Ankit at Grade 12 Graduation; Ankit going to University. I have seen it all. Almost everything.

 

Ankit: Grade 8 Graduation

 

Ankit: Grade 12 Graduation

 

Minutes, hours, days… time flies but his naughty smile, his grinning face is still the same as we saw it the first time. “Don’t worry Dad” was his favourite answer whenever I would ask him something. “Don’t worry!!!” and he has left nothing behind for us to worry about.

 

Ankit at Taj Mahal

 

The moments. They never leave you. You never let them go. You live those moments all your life. The moments gone by. You can’t live in moments gone by, but you can’t live without them as well.

Read Full Post »

Life Unfolding

October 31st. Today is my wife’s Birthday. Today is also the day when it all started. Today is the day that wreaked havoc in our lives.

It is the day when our son, Ankit, met with an accident, sustained life-threatening injuries and passed away seven days later. The day, my wife dreads, and wishes hadn’t come.

I still hear my wife frantically knocking on the door. I still hear her shrieking, cracking and trembling voice. Those voices have followed me ever since. But those voices don’t scare me anymore. Nothing scares me anymore. Those hysterical voices; they are part of me, my life now. My wife stills shrieks and cries hysterically. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the world that I can do to stop that. Her tears haven’t dried up until now and I don’t know if they ever will.

My wife hasn’t stopped crying since that fateful day. She can’t sleep. The pills don’t help her anymore. Life is one hell of a journey. Nothing hurts anymore. We are at our wit’s end trying to figure out the life we have now and what to do with it. You need to have the desire; the will in you to climb out of the hole which life has put you in. My wife simply has none. She is a caricature of herself now. No will, no desire, nothing. Just dragging her life, counting her days.

Life! What a transformation! Slowly but surely, slipping away as sand through your fingers, beyond comprehension as to why it has to be so cruel?

Read Full Post »

Ankit’s Memorial

Ankit’s Memorial? It sounds kind of weird to talk about Ankit and Memorial in the same breath. It sends a shrill down the spine. It hurts deep inside. Ankit’s Memorial? But that is what reality is. As painful; as brutal; as true; as death is.

Memorials. Never thought much about them until now. But I must admit, they are wonderful. Memorials are as awe inspiring as the person is for whom they are built. Larger than life. The tranquility; the calmness; the serenity; the quiescence, is amazing. If you ever need a place where you want to face the truth, as it is and not the way you want it to be, Memorials are the places.

You can be there for hours on and yet not feel the burden of time fleeting by. You can be there sitting with all your family yet not feel the need to talk to each other, not feeling it at the same time. You can be there sitting quite, yet talk your heart out. You can be there with your loved one, feel his/her presence, yet crying and asking yourself why he/she is not there. You can be there feeling like having touched him/her and yet be hollow inside.

Memorials, as beautiful and as wonderful as life is.

Read Full Post »