Agnes

I met Agnes last evening.. quite by chance... The day had turned out so beautifully.. that this evening plan felt like a icing on a cake.. and then Agnes has to be the cherry on that icing..

Agnes is a character from animation film 'Despicable me'..She is about 4 years old, the youngest of three girls... big brown eyes and long straight black hair, she is amazingly funny and at the same time hungry for love... she with her book of bed time story literally stole my heart... and she made me laugh and cry at the same time... watching her on the screen for about 2 hours brought the deepest pain to the surface but she also made me laugh and inspired me to continue writing... I am glad that I was light-headed last night.. or I would have surely cried... and I dont like to cry...

Agnes confronted me in more than one ways... especially at this point in time when I am at difficult crossroads in life... Agnes reminded me of my little notebook... that I started preparing in the Netherlands about 2 years ago... a little notebook for my 'imaginary' daughter (Janneke)... introducing her to Dutch life... among the ponies and horses, the canals, the dykes, the tulips, stroop waffles and pancakes...at that  point, I thought I would stay in the Netherlands and probably my daughter will be raised there. Janneke is a famous character from series of Dutch Children story books, Jip and Janneke...  The notebook is still sitting in my carton of books in the Netherlands... but yesterday watching Agnes brought back memories of Janneke and all the associated dreams seen with open eyes... almost naively... my troubles had already started while I was visualizing this darling daughter of mine...Agnes made me ache for a daughter...

I always wanted to raise a daughter.. why, I cant give precise answers... or reasons.. but I truly wanted to raise a daughter into a strong woman, the one who believes in herself, who sees her own beauty, who speaks up, who stands up for herself, who is strong but yet gentle and tender, who is amazingly loving but also knows not to forget herself while loving others... who can laugh and who can cry, who is not afraid of dreaming, who is not scared by any challenges.. who knows what she wants and who dares to take a stand even if that choice turns her world upside down....

May be, this is the kind of woman I myself wanted to become, i still hope to become...was I just projecting my own aspirations for myself on this daughter of mine? Did I want to experience a transformation in me while I provided this little girl an environment to grow into an extraordinary woman? I have been strong opponent of sex selection all my life.... but in my personal life, I always rooted for, hoped for, dreamt about a daughter... I guess that is also a sex selection of some sort.. but the underlying motivations are strikingly different.

Meeting Agnes last evening was special.. because till then I had thought, I was fine.. I had accepted the diagnosis... I was going to make sure that I make informed choices of my medical treatment... I really thought I had put handle on the situation... but nope... I had not... I was confronted, I was deeply sad, I was angry and I felt immense sense of loss..I was really angry at myself for investing myself emotionally so much in this unborn daughter of mine... 'if you have never tasted a chocolate, you dont feel sad not to have one'... Why did I dream so big? and if the dream was so important.. what was I waiting for till this age... did I think, the nature was going to manifest my dream even when I neglected its own pace and logic?

While training counsellors for HIV and STIs... we often discussed phases a person goes through when confronted with a diagnosis that was not expected.. anger, denial, disbelief, 'why me?', helplessness, sadness, fear of the future, fear of death, concerns about family, and eventually acceptance and making appropriate choices.... the process is never cyclic or linear and the stages don't necessarily follow the same order.. a person might even go through the same phase number of times...

now I have to observe my own emotional spectrum for these stages... for my deep emotions, the one that I am good at hiding, the pain, the tears, the sense of loss... there will be days filled with unlimited potentials, hopes, dreams and choices and there will be days when I wont be able to explain my blue state of mind... and both are equally true description of my emotional state... how do I accept both? How do I love myself with both? How do I believe that I will transition through this challenge as well... what do I learn through the process... I cry as I write this and hot flash engulfs my body... can it not evaporate my tears so that they dont leave a visible mark?

That is when I am going to make Agnes my inspiration....a reminder not to loose hope, to love and to laugh and to be crazy about her Unicorn, the one that she feels is so soft that she would die...  I see so many facets of Agnes in myself... will she hold my hand as I walk this path ahead of me... will she make me laugh when I am lost and defeated... will she ask me to read her a bed time story? I would love to do that... a bed time story... I would do it a thousand times.. to all the agneses around the world... to all the kids around the globe who love bed time stories... just as much as I do...

Agnes, I promise I wont give up on writing for you or Janneke or Zoe or Anoushka... I shall write even more... that way I can still connect with my daughter and daughters around the world.... I love you girl and I always will....that is my pinky promise.... :-)