AS THE DAYS PASS BY

AS THE DAYS PASS BY

She looked at his sleeping figure
and smiled. There was a time when her fingers would have automatically reached
across to him to pull down his raised leg. Sometimes she did it gently and
sometimes she did it in anger, but she always couldn't keep her hands away. He
loved to sleep with one leg raised at the knee and a foot placed not so firmly
flat on the bed. Slowly as he fell deeper into sleep, the raised leg made its
descent with a sliding movement of the planted foot until it came resting on
its heel with the toes pointing up. It wasn't so much the journey that used to
annoy her, it was the small whispering sound the journeying foot made on the
bed clothes that irked her. It took the better part of 9 years for her to make
her peace with the travelling foot. Now it was a symbol of peace, happiness and
affection. She had learnt that, just like everything else about him, the day
she realised how easily she could loose him.

When he told her his symptoms she
told him not to worry. He was probably coming down with an infection. Two weeks
later, they found out what it was afterall. He had an infection alright, but it
was much more serious than they had imagined. A virus had attacked his heart
from nowhere. No, the doctor told them, it wasn't anything he ate. It wasn't
anything he did either and yes it could have come from anywhere. Viruses came
from nowhere and attacked any part of the human system. Yes of course, it could
be cured with the right type of treatment. And on the doctor went answering all
their questions. That single experience made her realise how much she depended
on him for everything in her life. To make her laugh, make her happy, make her
proud and make her trust.

The leg moved a little and she
was brought back to its presence. She looked at the sleeping man again and felt
tears form behind her eyes. She had been with this man now for eleven years.
Eleven years in which he had never spoken an unkind word to her. Eleven years
in which she had always been sure of his dependability. She knew she could
depend on him for the things that mattered most to her. She could depend on him
to put their family first in all he did. The children had known from babyhood
that he was the one man in the world who could bring a smile to their tiny
faces. She could depend on him to stay up late into the night to fan her and
any of the sleeping babies with a card, a folded newspaper or a small folded
shirt when there was no power to electrically turn the fans or the air
conditioner in their room and the trees outside simply didn't move their
leaves. She could depend on him to stay and hold her hand through every drop of
sweat that fell from her face during those agonising moments of labour. And
through the gush of emotions that flooded through them both at the birth of each
baby. She could depend on him to always protect their children from harm. She
remembered his daily ritual. Every morning, before he stood up from the bed, he
would put a pillow in the spot he had just vacated to protect their baby from a
fall. He never ceased to amaze her. He never forgot and never defaulted. He had
done that every single day that any of the kids slept as a baby in their bed.
He did it for two years with the first who refused to sleep in his bed before
he turned three. He did it for three years with the subsequent two who came
within a year and a half of each other. Then he had a two year respite. The
next baby almost took her life in his resolve come to the world and had refused
to sleep anywhere but in their bed for almost three years now. Again she found
his unflinching faith, devotion and accountability almost eerie. Nothing ever
made him loose faith, nothing ever shook his devotion to their family and
nothing ever made her suspicious of him. Not a phone call and not a text
message. Earlier in their marriage, she convinced herself he was simply very
good at chasing girls behind her back. As the years fell, she told herself he
was either too good at it or he didn't do it at all. Eleven years on, she had
made peace with herself on that. She believed him when he said he didn't and he
had never. She was tired of the burden of suspicion she carried around in her
heart. It had been too cumbersome and only after she freed herself from it did
she realise how heavily it had weighed her down. Now she only wanted to take
things as they come and not worry about a future neither he nor she had any
control over.

She thought about the never
ending jokes in their home, the way he always made her laugh. It didn't matter
what he was talking about, he always had a way of making her ribs ache with the
way he described people and events. The silly dances and parades they did with
the children that usually had them all laughing and holding their stomachs. She
never tired of his company and once while on a trip together with two of the
children, he had declared that they were going to go round town on foot. They
had breakfast the next morning, took two energy tablets each, gave one to their
older son and strapped the baby to his push chair and took off. They went from
their hotel near the victoria station to the london eye, then to the game
arcade, the trafalgar square down to the buckingham palace where they spent
time in the adjoining gardens and chased squirrels and birds with the kids, and
all the way through to hyde park and ended in the shops on oxford street. It
was a wonderful experience they had that day and by the time they got back to
their hotel room, it was way past ten in the night and all three who went on
foot had a form of limp or the other. A quick gulp of some hot horlicks and
they slept like logs of wood. Their son told her later that day that he hadn't
had as much fun on a trip as he had that day. She laughed at the little boy and
asked if he would do it again that day. Of course the boy replied! He would do
it again as soon as his feet stopped aching him. She remembered that day with
so much love and pride. It was just a walk all over town but she had never felt
so bonded with her family as she did on that day.
It had taken her eleven good years
to finally tell herself the truth. She had a good man and as she watched the
foot slide down the length of their bed, she said a little prayer for him, for
their children, for their home and for their lives together for as long as they
lived.