The stranger who came to stay
I was very young when I met the stranger for the very first time, and what a rude stranger they were. They neither greeted me nor asked permission before silently creeping in, planting shadows where there should have been storybooks, candies, giggles, and sleep. My people called it an illness, but only I knew what it was a thief! For it stole pieces of me that I did not know could even be stolen. The doctors gave it a name, but I never did. Giving it a name felt like letting it stay.
Its smell, noise, sight turned into nightmares over the years. I didn’t understand what this stranger wanted from me, why my hair fell, why my bones ached, or why I could not run around like I used to, but I fought. My tiny little body turned into a losing battlefield of needles and silent hope. When the war ended, my parents got their daughter back, and the stranger was gone, but it had left me a note one I wouldn’t read until much later.
It said, “Always remember that it is I who let you stay, only because your broken life looked more entertaining than your death.” The stranger, it turned out, had taken a part of me I didn’t even know I’d miss until it was gone, and yet I don’t hate the stranger. Strange, isn’t it?
This uninvited guest taught me more than anything else life could. It taught me to value every breath I took, to love this broken body it left behind, to cherish laughter and joy on the hardest of days, and most importantly, to speak kindly to myself when hope seemed very far away. There is never a timeline for mourning what you never had but always assumed would be yours. This version of me is the only one I have ever known. Sometimes I wonder about what would have been if I had not met the stranger at all... but I still carry on. Not whole, but not hollow either.
The stranger may have stolen chapters from my story, but I always remind myself that it does not own my narrative; I am what remains strong, scarred, soft-hearted, and unshakably alive. And so, to the stranger’s note, I reply:
You came uninvited,
you took pieces of me that I’ll never get back.
But hear this I fought you and I lived,
And every breath I take is a sentence you didn’t get to write.