I wish I wasn't posting this

As i summon courage to write this, I know it will be emotionally taxing for me. It drained me, and my eyes when i contemplated it. I have usually left the task of loving to the ''elders'' in my life as I was not one to socialize. My heart seeks comfort in the fact that the love i felt for people , was felt by them because I usually got told they felt assured of it.  I wish i could say this for all the people I loved.
   Nabila, where do i begin .... First off, i offer my apology to her soul if there's anything like that, for writing the words i didn't say to her while i had the time. But in my defence, we always think we have time. After all, she was younger than me. I remember her in ponytails , in a school uniform. I remember her fanning herself sitting on a charpai, with her beloved father. She was very young. There were many moments in my life when i felt an overwhelming mix of love and pity for her, and in those moments i always thought, i would do this or that for her one day.   We don't routinely think of the mortality of people younger than us. Perhaps i can be excused, though i admit in my own mind,I have kept my innocence doubtful uptil now.
   She was our ''maid''. And i hope one day this letter will become a little bit contemptuous to read, i hope one day people will cringe at the use of this word as they now cringe about the use of the word 'negro'. I hope that day is near. But until then, just because I need to be truthful here, she was our maid. As people in Pakistan who can afford them, always have maids. It usually means a person involved in domestic help without any well defined job description who is at the mercy of the whims of her employer, with no recognized job benefits, leave, maternity or medical, or much credit to their existence. I hope, and in all honesty, Nabila was treated better than that. She was a beautiful soul. She was amazing while she lived and breathed among us. I spoke of her lovingly to my husband often, with as much love as i can muster for people under routine circumstances facing no impending risk of their mortality.
   She died and how that came about is a separate matter, and a source of even bigger anguish than the fact that she is not here with us anymore. She died after a normal child birth, and under dubious circumstances while being under care of a hospital. I am trying to fight for a bit of justice there, a better care and standard so that it doesn't happen to more people. That topic is vast and it makes my heart ache. It is for another day.
   When i heard the news of her death, I was studying. I was studying as i was in all those years when she was quietly servicing me, bringing me tea at the right intervals, bringing me the stuff my mother sent me from downstairs. My heart plummeted and the first reaction was denial. I cried a lot. I don't usually say 'I cried a lot' because i like to stay strong. And also, i also I feel adults should use 'weep' instead of 'cry'. But one of the things life has recently taught me is that it's ok, perhaps even necessary to be vulnerable sometimes. So i was, I let down my guard and cried out my grief in the arms of one person or another. No death had haunted me more. I have had many patients die in front of me and though I felt extremely sad about some of these deaths, that was the feeling which was cured after a cup of tea, a night's rest, or some words by Bertrand Russel. This death, was too personal to me.
  Now, before i talk about my hurt, i have to make everyone know what she was like. I know people are made into saints post humously and I don't buy that at all. There are a lot of annoying people who die, and whose death still makes us miserable, but at least I wouldn't say about a person what she was not. Nabila was an angel by heart. All my life that I had known her, I never saw her hurt anyone, she never answered back to anyone, she always cared for everyone, loved the kids, gave all her earnings to her mother, never cared for material possessions, never took anything which was not given to her, never spoke rudely and there are so many terrible things we see about people that she never did. The things that she did were, she liked to read the stories in magazine, she liked to eat, and well, that's all.
  I remembered all the moments. The last few days, every thing I did reminded me of her. I had tea, and i remembered the countless cups of tea she made me. I made my own bed, and remembered how she always used to do it for me before she made her own bed. I was studying in a corner, and i remembered how we used to share the same room, I used to study in a corner and she used to sleep in another. I took off my clothes from the hanger and rememberd how she always knew where different clothing items were when I hadn't yet learned to organize a wardrobe. I ordered a burger and I couldn't get one bite down, because she , Nabila, loved burgers. Having one was a rare feast for her. The ramen noodles, .. oh the noodles, when she was going back to her home after whole day of work, she used to say '' now i will make noodles with my sister''. She was always so eager to go back home. One day i was really curious about that home,  so i went  to drop her. She lived in a one-room house, which had a small tv set, and they were 7 to 8 people in that small area. That was the home she couldn't live away from. My heart was in my fist then. It was again one of those times when i felt i needed to say more to her, to be more to her, than just a harmless privileged daughter of her employer.  Perhaps i even bonded better with her the next day, I don't remember. I don't remember doing any remarkable thing for her ever.
  I remember the sound of her voice. Her shy manner of speaking. Her nose that was so straight and i loved it. Her chubbiness which was always so endearing. It complemented her beautiful loving heart, the child inside her that never left her. I remember the way she spoke to me always. I remember the background noises there used to be while i studied and she worked. I remember the sound of her footsteps coming down the stairs, the heavy thuds. I miss everything about her. I always loved her in my mind. I never told it to her enough.
  She always cared about the comfort of others at the expense of her own comfort. The last time i met her, she asked me not to come or 'waste my time'. I visited nonetheless, she was there, glowing, smiling, heavily pregnant and satisfied. The kind of great soul she was, she had made friends with everyone in the ward. She had even given her bed to someone else to sleep on while she sat uncomfortably in a corner.  She had given her charger to someone else. She was an angel, and she was smiling. Her skin was so smooth and i was thinking about how estrogen does wonder to women in pregnancy. She looked completely fine and she assured me of it. She said I mustn't bother at all. I asked her to make me meet her long time fiance , now husband. She took me along but he was sleeping. I shook hands with her and came back. I didn't hug her. Now i really want to hug her and plant a kiss on her cheek. I want to hold her for a very long time but she is gone. In my defense, i have never been a hugger.
In third year of medical school, we read about a person's reactions to grief. Denial, and blaming oneself is a part of it. There is some truth to it. I wish I had loved her more and thanked her more in all the moments she did things for me that I took for granted. I wish that so bad that it hurts right in the center of the chest and i have to excuse myself and cry alone in a room. What hurts me even more is that the last time she came to our home, she made way to sit on the floor when she was stopped and my mother asked her to sit on the sofa instead. I cry for the assumption that she had, that floor was the place for her. I cry for the fact that the person who did the most physical work behind the scenes of my wedding has hardly one picture taken of her in the whole album. I cry for the fact that I only knew her for being an angel, because i never had the opportunity to be closer to her than that .
The kind of person she was and how she spoke of everyone is enough to make me know that she could never have been anything less than the angel she was, but perhaps sometimes she fought too, maybe sometimes she really wanted something and asked for it. I hope there was some setting which i don't know of and in which she asked for her rights. I wish she knew she had rights. I hope she could take the liberties to be mean or nasty to someone, anyone in her life. That her little heart didn't have to take it all to the grave. If i get to know she was capable of a mean fight with someone, it will be immensely satisfying for me.
  When i read 'Kíte runner', i couldn't fully fathom the protagonist's feelings. Why was he so morose about the things happening his life? Today i know the answer. All his expereinces were lukewarm afterwards because Hassan, tugged at this heartstrings even after being long gone. Because his heart was no longer fully his, or going to be. In all the people he loved,  he looked for the love he had and he lost. and most of all, how he remembered hasan's nobility and purety left little room for many emotions in his heart. Hasan had never questioned him, he served him silently while knowing his place. He accepted his place without being resentful.  And there is no greater pain than to know you can never redeem the wrongs you did to the inattention you displayed towards these angels in your life.
  If there's any justice in the world, i would be her unassuming servant in the paradise. I would do all the things she did for me, without being asked. If there's any reward for me in paradise, i would be her friend. I would have the capacity, and judgement to be the friend of the special and beautiful person whom she was. I wasted that opportunity in this life, perhaps the only one we are going to get. And how it has killed a part of me forever, is only for me to know.