India Part 4--The Part that was Missing

Before I got pregnant I secretly wanted to be pregnant. I knew I wasn't, but this weird part of me would daydream that all my closest friends and family would throw me a surprise party to tell me I was pregnant! I wished they knew something I didn't know. Yes, I'm aware this makes no sense. I told my friends about this daydream and they all thought I was crazy, so I know it's not something normal people do. There's a point to this. It's a pattern in the way I think, it sometimes doesn't make sense. 

Similarly, after that phone call on that bleak October day, I hoped that there was something more my family knew, something I didn't know. That he was still alive. I would daydream that the next time I went to India they would all surprise me. That I would find out, of course, of course, he didn't die. 
__________________________________________________________________________

It was the summer between 5th and 6th grade the first time I grew attached to my cousin, Raju. I don't remember a lot of details, but I remember his contagious joy. I remember being obsessed with him. I remember I would get mad at him every time he left us to go meet his "girlfriend", because I had to hang out with him at every waking moment of the day. He was one of those people you just wanted to always be around because he made you feel worthy and special. He made you laugh and smile. He had the kindest eyes. He was warm. So warm. 

The summer ended and it was time to leave. I cried and cried for months after we left India. I kept a picture of him and his family on my headboard and every night before bed I hugged that picture and cried. Cried over the oceans and lands that were now separating us. 

Between my junior and senior year of high school, we went back. I still remember when the doors of our bus opened (after a long plane journey) and there he and his brother were with those big 'smiley guys' smile. It was like years hadn't passed. We picked up right where we left off. This time he had a wife and baby, but the way he treated me stayed the same. I still felt special. Was still attached to his personality and kindness. I cried days before we left because I couldn't possibly leave again. I couldn't. He was one of my favorite people on the face of the entire earth and I couldn't leave again. That last day our family spent in Goa sightseeing and picnicking on pretty lawns in front of beautiful cathedrals, I cried and cried. We even had a celebrity sighting we all were freaking out about (especially me because everyone knew I was obsessed with this Bollywood actor), and yet I didn't care as much as I should have because we were leaving again.

I remember hugging him and not wanting to let go. I remember thinking in my head 'What if I never see him again? What if this is the last time?'.  The tears didn't stop. How could we live so far away from family, leaving years hanging in between visits?

2 years later I woke up to a flashing red light on my cell phone that indicated I had a message, but for some reason, it looked more like a warning. I remember how that red light set off panic through my veins. I remember screaming. Screaming from the depths of my self. I remember the family getting together. I remember the sobbing from grown men. I remember the prayer, the one that gave everyone peace but turned my heart hard towards a God who would allow this. I remember talking to my mom. She told me life would go on and some day it wouldn't hurt this bad. But, I wanted it to always hurt this bad. If it didn't hurt this bad, that would somehow mean we were moving on. That him not being here was normal. And I never wanted this to be normal. I asked the God I was mad at to leave the pain, because I never wanted to accept this new reality. I would never accept it. So, the pain could stay as long as I was staying. 

He was on his way home from a prayer meeting when a drunk driver hit him head on. He was thrown from his motorcycle. There was blood. Lots of it. The details I received were graphic, and the images in my brain haunt me still. That perfect smile, those kind eyes, destroyed by death.

The families gathered, and together they grieved. They grieved together in India as the news unfolded and years passed. And then there was us. Grieving thousands of miles away longing to grieve with them. I felt like the burden was weighing me down, sinking me into the depths of despair. If I couldn't have him, couldn't I at least have the gift of grieving together?

It's been 10 years since that day I hugged him for the last time. 10 years since I had walked out of the house and closed the door on that summer none of us will ever forget. The one where a huge room full of cousins would stay up, long after the parents went to sleep, and play games--daring each other to do ridiculous things. Where we spent evenings sitting on the roof catching the breeze and talking about life. In 10 years, I had time to graduate from high school, graduate from college, intern abroad, travel Europe, do missions in Mexico, missions in North India, fall in love, get married, have a baby. A whole decade has come and gone since I saw him last. It feels like a whole lifetime.

A part of me thought maybe, just maybe I got the story wrong. Maybe he was actually there in India, waiting to meet my husband and my baby. Waiting to pick up where we had left off, just as we had the last time.

After we arrived in India, weeks passed and he never came. I would sit on the balcony and watch motorcycles drive by and my heart would skip to my throat for a second, just for a second, I thought he had come. 2 weeks later, they took me to the place where his body is. I won't ever forget it. Pulling into the parking lot, my whole body was shaking. Staring at my feet walking on the ground of his cemetery, everything in slow motion. I had simultaneously anticipated and dreaded this moment for 8 years. I wanted so badly to just be in the proximity of him/his body, and yet I dreaded seeing his grave with my own eyes.

And there it was. I broke. My body gave up to all sense of reason and all sense of composure. I sobbed the most honest tears I've ever cried in my life as I stood at the feet of where his body lay. There was no "surprise he's alive", and once I walked away, I could no longer hang on to that tiny, irrational bit of hope. His body was here. My own eyes saw his name printed on that cross. And I wept.

I won't forget that day. The day I found out, nor the day I visited him for the first time since he left us.

I'll also never forget as I knelt at his grave I caught the most beautiful picture out of the corner of my eye. Raju's son, Bobby, was holding my son as they scattered flowers on top of the soil that covered his body. I watched as Bobby leaned Jace over to set a rose down on that precious ground. And I realized as our weeks passed in India, Jace grew more and more attached to Bobby, kind of like the attached I was with Bobby's dad. That picture made sense to me.

The pain is still there and still strong. I'm not ready to ask the Lord to heal me from this pain, I still feel like I need and want to carry it with me. I'm still broken. We crossed miles to get to India and I left without ever getting to see his warm smile.

But, that picture. That beautiful picture of our sons won't leave my mind. Maybe Raju and Jesus were hanging out that day. Maybe their hearts broke when they saw how broken mine was. Maybe they smiled when they saw our sons together--or maybe our sons together was their smile.

Yes, of course. I did see his smile before I left India.

It was just as I remembered it.

It was beautiful.