The consoler

Today, I reached school to attend my friend’s defense thesis presentation. Went a little too early, thinking she might need some help for setting up the equipment. Coiled up in a chair, with swollen eyes, she tried her best to look normal. I asked her, “are you not feeling well?" Then her fiancé from behind said “her father passed away last night.” Next I see myself hugging her tight and crying. “Stop! what the hell are you doing,” I thought to myself, because she was crying even louder now. I rushed out of the room, took a few seconds and then it just struck me,

“I am the consoler today.”

I went back in, asked if she had eaten anything, got her some stolen cookies from next door and made sure no one attacked her with “their” tears like I did. I was all professional, talking to her professors after that, explaining the situation to her friends and finding out what needed to be done so that she could leave back to India without worrying.

After all that, I left with my friends for lunch and while coming back, my room mate says “lets just sit in the sun here, I can’t go back.” So, we walk to Hayden lawn and just sit on the steps. We look around. We see life as normal as it can be. People walking, running and talking, as if nothing had happened. And then the bravest of us all, bursts into tears. Her silence had ended. The rest of us, followed.

I was not the consoler anymore, I could cry now.

What had struck all of us was just the realization that we are all going to loose “them” one day. We are far away from homeland and might not get to see them again. It was silent, it hit hard, but it was necessary.