Monday, June 04, 2012

Hope at the End of the World

There comes a time in life when everything seems bleak, dark, despairing and over. When you feel that it is simply the end of the world. When even taking another breath is painful, when every pore of your body wants to scream in protest, when all you want to do is curl up and never look at the world again. Have you ever had that happen? When the pain is so intense, the hurt so deep, the wound so raw, that all you could do was sit and whimper? When tears don’t come, when all you have is a frozen, numb heart and soul that simply hurts…and hurts some more?

Indeed, the end of the world. I faced my own version over the last few days, and I have to admit, all I could do was sit and stare. Blank-eyed, frozen. I prayed for tears, for tears would thaw the numbness inside me. A cathartic washing that would make me feel something, anything, again. They came in fits and bursts, never the cascade that I was waiting for. They are still there, waiting for a vagrant word or image to begin the defrosting. Or maybe, just maybe, a warm hug…

Yes, the end of the world came. And went. And I decided to stop the pain, ignore it and get back to work. Square my shoulders, straighten my spine and gather my courage. Maybe it was some form of denial. Maybe it was the only way to survive- by not thinking about it. By not dwelling on it. By smiling, and being strong. And by hoping for a better tomorrow.

It’s strange, and I’d never expected it, but the world went on. Why didn’t the world stop spinning with the intensity of my pain? Why did my sorrow not stop the sun from rising, the moon from shining and the stars from twinkling?  Because while the sun rises, the moon shines and the stars twinkle, there is hope. Hope that touches us with its delicate wings and flutters around us, weaving a delicate web that slowly and softly sews the heart together. Hope that ripples into our soul and mends the gentle cracks. Hope that hugs me, and makes my frozen tears thaw and flow out, so that they are frozen here in words instead. These words take the pain from inside me and onto these pages, pages that hold me and hug me and make me cry. Pages and words that mutely listen, and comfort and record.

I’d written once about a line from the movie Om Shanti Om, “hamari zindagi main bhi, hamari filmon ki tarah, end mein sab theek hi ho jaata hai…Aur agar theek nahi hua, to ye The End nahi hai...Picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost..."

I hope so. I seriously hope so.