My best friend N was always the cheerful bubbly person. She always had a smile clinging onto her face even in the toughest of situations. When I broke down, she was there to offer me her support mentally. I never could have imagined a change that would turn her into a completely different person.
A few months ago, I received a call at 6 in the morning from N. Her agonizing howls made me jump up from my sleep in a second, and I kept on asking her what went wrong. Somehow it seemed that my wildest nightmare had come true – I was on the verge of losing my best friend forever.
But it was not about me. N had witnessed the death of her grandmother in a road accident that morning. N had been in the car herself, and by the descriptions, I am amazed that she is still alive. She had severe shoulder injury and her mother had broken 8 ribs and had a spine fracture. I wanted to rush to the spot immediately and give a comforting shoulder to N, if not being able to help the situation by any other means. However, that was not possible either – the spot of accident was a minimum of 8 hours drive from Dhaka .
What could I do to assuage my friend? Were there any words of consolation? Certainly not.
N and her mother were brought to Dhaka immediately on an Air-Ambulance. Without wasting a minute, I rushed to the hospital to find my best friend mentally shattered down to pieces. And that was the first day of her second life.
N had suffered a great loss in only a matter of a few minutes. This unexpected incident had affected her so much, that I barely recognize her now. N is no longer the bubbly cheerful girl who goofs around her friends all the time. N’s smile is no longer the symbol of warmth. But it is true that she has matured ten times more than she ever was before. She is now a dutiful, responsible member of her family who takes care of her family as well as focusing on her academics in the best possible way.
Even now N cracks a joke every now and then to make everyone laugh. But having been her best friend for a long time now, I know her smile is nothing but pretence that N pulls off so that she doesn’t have to withstand the sympathetic gazes form people at her loss. Supporting a friend in such a difficult situation is not an easy task. I had to cope up with the absence of the old N quickly. Even though I did not approve of the feigned new face of N, I wished she would somehow leave it all behind her and start living again.
Well, I wasn’t completely wrong. N had coped up with her new life all too easily. But she admitted to me that she had left her own corpse in the crashed remains of her car. Although it is still difficult for me to find my years-old pal in N, I know that she lives deep within the scars of N’s mind.
If I had anything to learn from this incident in my best friend’s life, I learnt to find a way out of every barrier that life has to offer. They say that time heals all wounds; I disagree to that partly. Time might heal all wounds, but some wounds may leave behind permanent scars. Time would show us how to leave the horrifying memories behind and move on with life. But it would not be able to erase those memories completely from our subconscious. N had made this subtle truth evident for me.
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