Inflection Point

This entry is about the inflection point in my life. Regurgitating the day, that had a ripple effect on my life forever.

I remember, we were in an a small hermitage. I was playing imaginary train tracks with my cousins. There were three elevated narrow mudpaths between plantations. We were imagning the trains are going to come to an unsuspecting danger and would get de-railed as they get bombed. We were running around throwing stones at these imaginary points where the trains were suppose to be. The rituals were going on, adults were busy with their make believe and so were the kids. Suddenly my mother calls me and my sister with a sense of urgency and we all huddle up into an old fiat. My dad had left sometime back on his scooter, or so I heard. I was in middle on the front seat. One of the elder cousin was driving, my dad’s elder brother was on my left. My sister, mother and the wife of my dad’s elder brother were in back seat. Whispering.

Few minutes in, as we started, I hear wailing. My mom is crying inconsolably. My sister is sniffling. I am confused. Wondering if there is a muffled altercation going in the back seat and repressed feelings are bubbling up. The uncle on my left says, something to the effect of “I told you to not say anything yet!”

No one tells me anything. As usual I am trying to make sense of everything and guess possible issues. I realize now, that I have always been hesitant to ask clear and bold questions.
We reach a junction near our hometown. I and my sister get out, I realized there has been a jeep full of more relatives behind us. We board that jeep. Before we do, my mother hugs me with tear laden eyes. And then my sister and goes back into the car. My sister and I get into the other car. My sister muffled cries turns into uninhibited wailing and she throws herself to another aunt and tries to console her.
I sit confused and unsure. Looking at everyone. Everyone looks at me like I am a lost child, who is too young to understand and yet I am perfectly capable. Just that no one says anything to me.

We reach home of one of my cousins. Thats when my sister tells me that my father has met an accident and he has been taken to a big hospital 5 hours away. It is serious.
I think, I know my dad, he is unfalliable. I think nothing of it. Of course he was going to be ok. I spend rest of the day playing.

It is only when I walk into the hospital 45 days later to see him that I realize how wrong I was.