Alisha

Alisha

Alisha created a commotion each morning while going to school.
Or rather being taken to it.It was quite a task! The wailing begun soft and low scale early mornings punctuated by shrieking yaps of agony, "no noo-o mamma", "won't put powder, don't like it..", "mamma I want chocolates for lunch...", "no school...no go !";
The comments rotated over the week in regular succesion.

Finally at 7 a.m one caught a daily glimpse of a neat and tidy pinafored banshee all of 3 years old, wailing her way to school tugging away from mamma in last ditch attempts to escape.

Alisha was our 3 year old cute curly haired neighbor. Both her parents were scientists and went to work after dropping her off to a school cum day care centre. At about 5.30 pm one of the parents would always be seen with her as she hopped and skipped back home...she had been admitted at just 16 months as her parents had decided that the earlier she got accustomed to a school environment the better. I too felt it was better than being in a lonely house alone with a maid as her  parents would be at work the whole day!

Then a whole week passed without seeing our daily droll debacle of a damsel in distress! On meeting Alisha's mom I enquired and the answer left me wishing I had not asked.

Walking up the stairs home I was weighed down, pensive and pondering the tough realities of life which refuses to spare even three year olds!

Little Alisha was bedridden with a terrible disease called Jobs syndrome which necessitates IV drips injections, antibiotics and frequently,  hospital incarceration.

I am sorry to say I was ignorant of the disease and had to google it to spare the distraught mom my distressing questions. Reading about the stigmata of infectious boils and painful symptoms of the disease I softly cried for the tiny human doll lying in her hospital bed.

She was brought back home after a few days and I visited the mite with a book and some chocolates which I deposited with her mom.
Alisha looked so normal so good but there were traces of red a flushed look and some marks of eruptions on her face...I stroked her hair and told her to come upstairs whenever she liked as she couldn't go to school yet.

Alisha gravely declared I was to carry her up now and enquired, "aunty, is your bathroom clean? ...because if I have to go I like a place with a clean bathroom!"; I ran a hasty mental check and amusedly reassured the little health and hygiene inspector!

Upstairs she demanded Bournvita and all the books on my shelves.It was fun sprawling on the floor together showing her pictures of seas oceans and continents...
"What is continent aunty?".I explained if the rooms are like countries, like say India is one room, then the house with its many rooms is like a continent...
And so time passed.
And for the next 3 weeks as she recuperated at home I had my daily trysts with an angel on earth on a short visit.

I say short because with carefully monitored conditions and patient treatment mortality rates are containable in jobs syndrome. Its a painful gruelling disease. Death usually occurs from recurring respiratory diseases and sepsis that sometimes sets in.

I don't know how it happened in the end . Because I too was away the weekend Alisha passed on to where babies go. God in his infinity of wisdom and mercy has to have made provisions for such fledgling souls who have barely dipped their mortal beings into this curious cesspool this loathsome lagoon of life where sometimes the loveliest of lotuses bloom.

My pretty pixie Alisha was a lotus bud, that succumbed to a rotting illnesss that is a ghoulish genetic dice bequeathed to unwary players in the dance of love.
Two partners, a couple -one with an autosomal recessive and the other with an autosomal dominant gene unite and the expression of their love and longing, their desire for continuity through offspring is crushed and
thwarted, through this gruesome disease.

I had to present myself to pay my condolences, something that tore at my heart with reluctance and horror.
I did not, could not mouth the words that over the ages of human frailties have been crafted and tailor made to ease gracefully through such occasions!
I am ashamed to state it but it is true. ..

It was Alisha's mom Reva who took pity on me and tossed off the words before I could.
"We are indebted to you. You gave our child some happy moments. Do you know what our baby told us the morning she passed on?"
Her sobs contorted her voice and I was frozen no longer.  We embraced and comfort was exchanged between two mothers.
Only, to this day I cannot say who comforted whom.
Reva lifted her eyes suffused with tears and in a brave steady stream delivered her daughter's last words, "Mamma, I am going to God's continent now...where there'll be many many rooms. Viji aunty knows where all the continents are! You ask Viji aunty mamma. She knows everything, she'll bring you to me."

Yes baby, in God's continent there are so many many rooms.
Rooms of wonder, Rooms of horror.
And Rooms of forever untouched unspoiled innocence.
Darling child you are wrong for we know nothing.
But, it's a promise love, we will visit you soon.
   

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(c) Amrita Valan 2014