OF WARRIORS
“You’re a warrior. Warriors don’t give up and they don’t back down. Pick up your sword and fight.”
This is a line that will always remind me of this wonderful person I’d met a year back. I still remember the day. It was 11th December 2017. I was waiting in the surgical ward of a renowned hospital in Johor Bahru, Malaysia to undergo a surgery to fix my broken ankle. There I was, scared, weeping in pain, when the smiling patient beside me caught my attention. It was a young girl in her early 20’s dressed in similar surgical dress as mine. I guessed that she might be waiting for her surgery as well. But she seemed to be perfectly fine with a pleasant and soothing smile on her face that instantly made me cautious and helped lighten up my mood. We were almost 6-7 people waiting in the ward for our surgeries. But this girl, she preferred jumping out of her bed and visiting each of us, trying to understand our problems, trying to comfort us and would patiently calm us down.
Honestly, I was amused to see such high spirits in a person before a surgery. I wanted to talk to her to get to know her better. So, when she came back to her bed, I asked her of her ailment. Like, what was she there for! Initially she said that she was having a small surgery so I assumed it to be a minor surgery and hence, she was hardly scared maybe. Our conversation had lasted for a while when I considered asking her if she was scared for the surgery and I did. To which, she smiled and said that it wasn’t her first. A bit taken aback, I didn’t know what she meant and that is when I got to know that she was on dialysis since the age of 17-18 and has been visiting the hospital thrice a week for multiple such sessions. She recalled how she’s been operated once without anesthesia, as well. I was almost shaky and couldn’t help asking her bout’ how she’d manage it all. She smiled yet again and said that she often sees it as a fight with the evil where her only option is to emerge as a winner and I couldn’t be more proud of a 20 year old being so profound. She spoke of her dreams at length, her friends and family that were the greatest support to her and the poise with which she did, I still cannot get over.
Post surgery we’d exchanged numbers and kept in touch. Although we never got to meet much but she imbibed in me the greatest lesson of my life i.e. life is too short to wake up with regrets. So, accept all the challenges, live in the moment, spread cheer and laugh as much. Forgive and forget as things won’t always be easy but they’ll definitely be worth it, most of the times. She humbled me, this brave kid of mine that I’d stumbled upon at the strangest of time at one the most unlikely places.
