REMEMBERING THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP

“If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden.” 
― Claudia Gould

It’s not his birthday, it’s not even the day when  I got introduced to  him, neither is it the day he  passed away. In fact, it’s just another day in my life. Another ordinary day, without  him.  He has been gone for five  years, but why do I feel as if it was yesterday  and   sometimes yesterday translates into centuries.

He is Ryan, my friend for eternity.  It is very rare to find a person in life with whom one connects instantly and the connection deepens with each interaction. A  time comes that you cannot conceive your life without him/her. Ryan was that person in my life.  I could never have imagined that  a chance encounter in a professional set up  would end up in  a  life- long friendship . His friendship was the biggest gift I could have received.  He came in my life when my faith in friends and friendship was wavering. My guards were up and I had built a wall around me to protect myself. There was so much in me waiting to explode, to  be heard . All that was needed for that strong wall to crumble  was a gentle yet persistent tap.  Ryan kept at the tapping very diligently till one day the wall crumbled and slowly the process of trusting people began again.

I soon realized that  despite the glaring differences in our personalities deep down we cherished the same values and enjoyed the same things.  Ryan was my partner in all these crimes: food, books and movies. Together we  explored the road side restaurants  in  an  attempt to find the best  matar –paneer or beef chilly,  walked  miles  at end in the Sunday book market to buy the cheapest books and   stood in line for hours to buy tickets  of the latest movie.  Above everything else he taught me to enjoy my work. His passion for  work was the same as his passion towards life, slightly more perhaps. I know what I know of HIV and substance abuse because of Ryan.   He would push me, prod me, nudge me gently till he was satisfied by the quality of presentation paper that I had produced.  Ryan taught me an important lesson. You do not have to be a singer to sing or a dancer to be able to dance. All you need is passion.

In the short time that I knew him ( 4.5 years), we were in the same city only for a year and a half.  Somehow distances never mattered, thanks to the internet . Emails and yahoo messenger never made us feel the distance first between India and Thailand and between India and Nepal. Our friendship only strengthened despite the distances.  We were always connected. No matter what.

His death  in July 2009 was  the biggest setback for me. For the longest time I could not accept that he was no longer there. I kept hoping  for a phone call to materialize and  the sound of his voice to fill my ears.  If not a phone call then a  voice message on yahoo that was given when I was unavailable to pick the call. Neither the phone call or the voice message ever came.  

Death of a loved one is like a fresh amputation.  Gory and bloody at first, throbbing with pain. The missing part  always a reminder of the possibilities that never would be.  With time the amputation becomes a   lifeless stump and the pain a background, which is always there but hardly makes its presence felt. You get accustomed to it but acceptance is a totally different story. Acceptance  does not make the pain go away, you just become an expert at living with it.  The acceptance of his death came much later in life and changed things for me.  The parallel world  that I inhabited inside my head, where Ryan was still alive and I could converse with him ceased to exist.  With acceptance  I gave up hope of a telephone call from him.  Acceptance made his death real to me.

I  believe that one can grow old with people they love, not necessarily just your  partner or significant other.  One spends life “together” with people other than lovers and spouses.  I wanted to grow old with Ryan, spend our lives together.  With close friends, I often wonder how each of them will look when they are 55, 70 or 80. I will see them at that age, because they are here but not Ryan. How would  he have looked at 80? Will he have been stooped, his face filled with wrinkles, a few teeth missing yet with the same  exuberance.  I have no way to know.  He will forever be 43 in my mind, even when I am 75 years old.

I never thought I’d miss the smallest thing about him when he is not around. I miss  his lopsided smile, the glint in his eyes when he talked about his daughter,  his  apparent enthusiasm to dance at any given opportunity when  all he did was jump on the music, his  screams, whenever India won in a cricket match.  I miss it all. Sometimes  the mere thought of him is so emotionally over-whelming for me that  the simple exercise of breathing becomes the most laboured one.

Everything  reminds me of him. I can’t eat a dosa without the awareness that it was his favourite food in the entire world.   Every time I see a man  wearing a kurta, I smile my self-knowing  how much he hated wearing  Indian clothes.  I could not watch the movie “HER”  without  tears  rolling down my cheeks. The protagonist was a leaner, shorter and whiter version of Ryan.

Two days before he died,  we were waiting for his turn for the X-ray in the hospital that he was admitted in.  He was weak, very weak and it was an effort for him to even speak a sentence.  He whispered my name and  called me near.  “ I love you. Always will.  Just remember that Prags”  and kissed my cheek. And he was then wheeled in.  I kissed him too but two days later, minutes before he was cremated. The final good-bye kiss.

Ryan is the  funniest man I have come across.  While I am tapping the key board away furiously, emptying my  being of all emotions, he is  up there somewhere  looking down at me and  nodding his head in disapproval at my  tears that threaten to spill out any moment.  As if trying to  tell me “I’m having a lovely time up here, don’t worry about me. Think of me and smile my sunshine.”  I smile  through my tears thinking of all the times that were a gift to me because Ryan was a part of those moments.  It’s not too much time before I see you my friend.  Be ready  then  to be awake all night because we have a bag full of years to catch  up on with each other.