Today is Jacky's birthday. She died of brain tumor at the prime of her life. Her son was very young then, and now he's graduated and working in an International Company.
When Jacky and I began our ambitious project of starting a recruitment agency, we agreed that she would handle the marketing aspect of the company. She had worked in a foreign staffing agency before and had the know-how, plus clients who stayed faithful to her at our agency. She was vibrant, very beautiful, fun-loving, and an intelligent woman.
I recall how I begged God to not take her away just yet. We are a close knit family and we couldn't take the idea of one of three sisters in the family missing in finality from our lives. But she was suffering so much.
She and her son stayed with Mom, and on the day she died, as always, I stopped by Mom's place to visit her. She was already in the last stages of brain cancer, and holding her head in her hands, crying that the headache was unbearable.
Then, her condition deteriorated in a matter of hours. We rushed to get her to the hospital in my brother's car, but the traffic was too heavy. That delayed our arrival at the hospital by more than an hour. We went straight to emergency and the doctor rushed to attend to her.
I was heartbroken to see her in that state, because throughout her illness, she faced everything that came her way with a brave front. She did some charity work for an organisation, apart from her duties in the agency. She never gave up trying to stay alive for her son's sake.
Death is so final. Jacky was someone who lived life as best as she could, with a smile on her face, and had a charisma that would melt hearts. Which is why, I look at life as fragile. I try to do the best I can, just as she had done, in everything I undertake. She was my confidant, dance partner and a sibling I had the utmost pleasure to be around with.
We miss you, Jacky. Come back home.
Shobana
