An Inevitable Choice

I was up that day a little earlier than usual. The decision I was to take was to change my entire life. This was not the first time I was taking a responsible decision and given the way my life had spanned out, I knew that what came after may be very different from what I had in mind. And yet I knew that I had to take a decision, be at the helm of affairs, take charge of my own life. For, I was never really a drifter, one to shirk responsibilities or blame others for what happened in my life. That is perhaps why I had long since lost my name; for everyone who knew me always called me  Jiddi – strong willed.

I wonder whether that defined my life or shaped it. Something I will never know. Like everything else, which is just defined by perceptions, this too was the way you chose to look at it – a matter of perspective.

I thought I had lived what I had stood for: fought my way through life for what I believed in, never given up on challenges, tried to put my best foot forward in every task I accepted and took on.

And so would this decision be. One that would be true to me. On the one hand was the life of a child yet to be born, on the other a slim hope that modern day medicine would cure me. And I chose the former; for only that seemed fair, though I did not know whether my beloved and my little one would ever forgive me for it. And so when the doctor came, I unhesitatingly told him not to treat my cancer; for if I were to treat it, it would definitely affect my little one. I knew it would ravage my mind, destroy what I had struggled to remain true to and build up; but this was a decision I had to take. And so, at the risk of displeasing two of the people who mattered most to me: I chose death in life. I do hope my little one that tomorrow when you grow up in a world which might make you wonder whether it was worth it being born and living, you see my decision as the only one a mother could take. For, Dearest, isn’t that what life and decisions are all about – do they shape us or do we take them?  One will never know.