A strange echo

There are just some days that you cannot forget.
Every detail of every munite, every second is etched in your memory. It's like a movie which keeps running in your head.

All the moments of that one particular day is in my head. But not the whole day, just till a particular point. And after that it just goes blank.

Her eyes used to light up the moment she used to hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and when we left she used to look so sad, but never too sad - she still had her ego in place.
It's so strange how she used to give so much of solace even though she could not speak or even get out of bed. At my toughest and saddest times I have just gone and sat next to her and held her hand. And she seemed to understand it all. All that I had to say and all that I didn't.

My words are now haunting me. They keep on coming back to me.
'Aami aashbo aabar tomake dekhte, tumi bhalo theko'.
There is no one to go back to now. The only thing which keeps on coming back to me is that a year ago this time she was still there.
And I miss her. I miss her so.

I don't know whether I wish she was still here, cause she was in pain, lots of pain. And I dont mean to be selfish. It's just that her going has left such a vaccuum that its real hard at times. Honestly I never thought that it would be this hard, but it has been far more than that. I always thought that I would be comforted by knowing that at least there is no more pain. But there are days when the movie in your head just refuses to stop.

I can still see her breathe her last, still struggling to live and at that moment I was so taken by all of it I did not know what to do. The nurse said "Step back please and let the soul leave, it's not being able to go with you'll surrounding her like this. Let her go in peace". And we did. We did step back.
I wonder if we hadn't would she still have been with us?

It's almost a year and the strangest part is that what has stayed on with me amongst other things is not the echo of her voice but the echo of my voice telling her 'aami aashbo aabar tomake dekhte, tumi bhalo theko'.
Maybe it's because when I used to tell her this I always used to fear that there won't be a next time and that this was the last time I was seeing her.

And that day, 19th July 2006, it was the last time I saw her and yet it's my voice which still echoes in my head.