Friday 26 / April / 2024
Two weeks ago, I lost one of my students. She was only 23. I talked to her a couple of weeks before her untimely death while she was in hospital. I had arranged a job interview for her and her voice still echoes in my head now.
She asked me if I could postpone it to another day. I promised her I would but of course, she never made it. When I received the message of her death, I was numbed. All kind of thoughts went through my mind. The other graduates who went through the interviews got the jobs just a week after her death. It was a difficult week for all us. There were no celebrations, just subdued acknowledgments. When I thought I should cheer them up by sending them a congratulatory note, they did not respond. Then I realised I was insensitive and deeply regretted it.
I wrote to tell them that now they should look forward to their new lives of independence and responsibility. But it was a temporary hindsight on my part. They could not connect with my enthusiasm. How could they? They have lost a colleague and how could they look forward to their own life when she would not be part of it anymore? I felt a pang of guilt that night and to relieve it, I tried to recall every moment I was with her. I even imitated her voice, remembered the way she used to sit passively in the class, the brief discussions we had and the questions she asked. However, it did not make me feel any better.
It did not make me feel better the next day either. I looked for her final project and went through it. I scanned my eyes through the pages and remembered the objections I had with some of her arguments. Perhaps I was hard on her and I should have left it the way she had submitted it. I was obviously grieving but did not know at that time until one of her former classmates sent me a message. The message was very simple. It said, “when words start the sentence, memories complete the story of a person gone”. I thought about it for several minutes trying to make sense of it. Then I got it, or thought so. Words can never make up for the losses. The memories retain the information and eventually the effect wears off though one can never forget.
Through the moments of my grief, I was forced to examine the relationship of the people who would make an impact in one’s life. Unfortunately, death makes the greatest impact. I guess it is the finality of the situation that makes the biggest difference. There will be no time for forgiveness, reconciliation or makeover. That bridge has gone and you cannot build another one. However, one can always learn from people they have lost. The makeover can come from fine tuning your life and put into spotlight people who are around you. Every little gesture you make, every word you say and action you take count in the end.
With this realisation, I was tempted to write a few paragraphs in the whatsapp pages so my students who are in the group can read. I am glad now I fought off the impulse not to do it. The last thing they wanted for their teacher to open up his feelings to them just because I had lost one of them. So I decided to get a grip of myself and move on. By doing so, I would still keep her in a special place in my memory without blaming death for taking her away at a tender age.
