From this moment forward.........

It was a warm and humid afternoon during the month of May. The sun shone outside like a fireball and it seemed as if every living being was deep into a spell and refused to move! But the interiors of the church offered all the tranquility and sanity one would need.

Gracy prayed, in quiet solitude, eyes shut and mind as calm as a quiet lake at dawn. Gracy, in her late 30s, would be stepping into a new role, soon. This was a moment she has been waiting for, since the past two long years; this was the moment towards which her hands were stretched in dire desire, her lips never stopped praying and her belief never ever swayed.

Gracy was bearing in her womb, the image of her love for her man. In her womb was the bloom of crimson hopes, with the wings for her dream. A dream, which defined into her crave for a complete family, her crave to be called a mother; her desire for a souvenir she would present to her man, wrapped in all her aspiration and worship.

Gracy was the wife of Thomas, a wealthy businessman who had everything he could ever want: name, fame and heritage. But everything in life is not bestowed just by wanting and reaching out! Thomas was clueless as to who would carry forward the heritage which his forefathers had built and which he had meticulously preserved and added. In other words, Thomas wanted to be a father!

Gracy was the second wife of Thomas. Thomas was previously married to the beautiful, charming and cheerful Stella. Together, Thomas and Stella had once weaved the dream of a nest which would be built high among the branches of aspiration, rooted deep in faith and stretching its hands towards the boundless sky of delight, contentment and benevolence.


Providence had other plans for the young birds, which were still busy gathering twigs and grasses for their dream nest! Stella died during the childbirth and just after an hour, the newborn was also on its way to join its mother!

With them, died the soul of Thomas, leaving behind a body, moving around, aimlessly, with the remains of the scattered nest in his shivering palm, wandering why the storm was so violent! How could he put them together again!

Time is the best healer, the wise say! In another five years, Thomas picked up the pieces of his broken and scattered life, one by one and gathered courage, to gather twigs and leaves for a nest, yet again! And that is how Gracy came into his life.

Not that Thomas was new to Gracy. Being part of the same commune, Thomas was not a stranger. Gracy had, from a distance, been a silent spectator of whatever was happening in Thomas’s life, all these years, since Thomas was a University student. So, it goes on to say that Gracy always loved him but never had the courage to speak up.

After their wedding, it did not take Gracy long to realize that Thomas searched for Stella in her. Gracy knew, that for Thomas, she was nowhere like the Stella whom Thomas has carried like a crown! Stella lived in his heart and dreams and he was in an effort to find a living Stella in the mortal Gracy!

Thomas wanted to be father, craved to be a father, although he did not say a word about it. Even though no words came from him, Gracy was not oblivion of this. After all, she knew him since years and all these years she had always waited for one single careless glance from this man and now the man was hers! All hers! This would often strike a melody in her thoughts and body although she knew that when Thomas looked at her eyes, he looked at Stella!

Gracy had, thus, started believing that once she is the mother of his child, he would start noticing her as a different woman. She herself yearend to bear the child of the man she loved. She would not let anything bar her from being a mother.

She carried the belief, all alone, in her heart and as if her prayers were heard, with powerful recommendation from the soul of the beautiful, benevolent Stella, at God’s doorstep, Gracy found herself on her way to having her first baby!

Thomas, though very caring, could not often accompany her to the doctor. However, he had employed a fleet of chauffer, attendants, full-time nurse and care-giver to take care of Gracy and pamper her during the special nine months. Gracy could see a happy Thomas, for the first time, like this, in the past two years of togetherness. She could see a change in Thomas’s eyes, the way she smiled at her, the way she took her fingers in his hands and the way he brushed aside her playful locks from her face. This Thomas was her man, and she was his, for the first time!

Sometimes, she would wake up in nightmare, fearing if anything would go wrong! She clutched her hopes and happiness, all in a bundle, near to her heart and could not afford anything to snatch it away!

So, on this sunlit afternoon, Gracy rested in the cool milieu of the church, like a tired child on the lap of her mother!

Just two days prior to the due date, her blood pressure was abnormally high. What she had hidden from Thomas and all others was that she was, before pregnancy, warned against bearing a child at that instance, due to her low weight and anaemic condition. She did not pay any heed to it, did not ever talk to Thomas about it. She was head-on her path to bear the child, bear the child for Thomas and in return, demand what she was waiting for, always! A small niche in his heart! Together, they would make a ‘family’ and how she savored the very thought of it!

Her blood pressure was not normal and she ran into many complications. On her way to the labour room, she managed to whisper into the doctor’s ears, “Doctor, even if something happens to me, even if I do not survive, let this baby see the light, let it survive; his father awaits him…..”

A frenzied Thomas walked up and down the lobby, with fingers clutched in prayer! The moment had arrived!

The doctor rushed out of the labour room and explained to him that there was serious complication and a threat to the life of the mother as well as the baby. Though she would try the best of the best, the doctor announced the cruel truth that only one of them could survive and not only that, after this delivery, for sure, Gracy could never be a mother again!

The cruel fate looked up with a crooked smile once again, at Thomas! Time froze again and his feet were like heavy stones and he felt hollowness in his entire body. The fate’s finger marked an icy line down his spine. There was Thomas, a lost man, all set to lose again….

The doctor added that Gracy had wished for the life for the baby but as ethically….

Thomas did not wait to hear her explanation.

The suddenly composed man, in his decisive voice, told the doctor, “Doctor, I want my Gracy to live….I want my Gracy….!”




Anindita Baidya