Sutures and Wanderlust

In the silhouettes of strangers I will forever see my friends The people in a seaside restaurant celebrating someone's birthday They look like my old friends, don't they? All this while I thought love eluded me With every turning stone I wore my heart on a sleeve And ended up with broken hearts All this while I thought love eluded me But love was here All this time What more precious love could have I  asked for? More pure, more strong Than the one We shared My dear, friend

"cheers" "I haven't done any other step but I've done step 4 and that's the most important one" "kuddooooooosi" "look, stay with us, we'll all cry together, ok?" "yawr" "ayesha, no" "you're like the cat you know, you get chased by dogs, and then you want attention but you push away the people who give it to you" "are you agnostic too?" "I will make chai for you but then you have to promise you will be quiet and let me study" "let's go to the cafe, we'll study there" "let's go to the football field, we'll dance there" "do you have milk? no, not for me, for the cat" "you're coffee mug is my coffee mug's baby cup!!" "people can do anything" "am i still fake?" "did he make you cry? we'll go punch him in the face if he did" "you're just like the...

I was a third year medical student. My first clinical rotation was General Surgery. I still remember the first weekend I was on call. I remember the first time I received a patient on call in the OR. I remember his name. I remember his face. I remember everything about him. If he were to walk by I would still recognise him. Except he won't. He won't be able to walk by ever. That night, a single, small bullet had taken away from our patient his ability to walk, forever. And so it had taken from him life as he knew it. He was a young man, with dreams and hopes. He was to be married in a few days before this happened. And all that he was left with was a colostomy bag and wheel chair. Every time a resident, a consultant, a medical student visited him he would say, 'please make me walk again'. It can make one think of all the time we spent on learning the tracts and leminisci in the spine, the pathways travelling in the spinal cord in beautiful nerve bundles. And how a sm...