Ravi

Ravi’s death, two days ago, has shaken me to my absolute core. The furious whirlwind of emotions – heartbreak, fury, guilt, denial – has had me feeling a confusing combination of tension and exhaustion. Ravi had become the warm, beating heart of our Kopila family and something of a mascot. After all, he had survived so much since coming to Maggie as a 4 pound skeleton on the verge of death a year and a half ago. He had grown into a plump toddler absolutely bursting with life and love of life. And, more than that, his surviving self was a testament to the power of nurturing, motherly love.

I loved him completely. Anyone who spent a minute with him was instantly infatuated. Anyone who ever held him and danced around as the kids went off to school or helped him eat at the dinner table or heard him say “uh oh” before doing something naughty, they were drawn to his undeniable charm and glow.

Disaster has been no foreign thing to me and to Kopila Valley – even just since I’ve been there, the country has seen a terrible earthquake, disastrous flooding, a petrol crisis – but nothing could ever be worse than this. From all the followers on Facebook or Instagram to our family in Nepal and Maggie especially, I do not see how a child could have been loved more genuinely or completely. All of us have lost greatly here. But what I in particular struggle to make sense of is how or why this could happen to Maggie, who has given her life and every ounce of herself to helping those around her. It is cruel, and only cruel, that she should be forced to experience this, to bury her child.

I will never make sense of it. None of us will. All I can do is ask myself, How can I change? How can I live a life that is worthy of Ravi, in a way that in some small way reacts to his death by working harder to make this wide world, and my narrow world, happier and healthier places? I have no answer for this, not now. And until I return to Nepal and grieve properly, I won’t find an answer. I can only attempt to come to terms with this new reality without diminishing the gravity of Ravi’s death or distancing myself from it emotionally. I can never allow myself to forget how much I loved that child and how much he meant to me.

But for now and like everyone else, I just wish I could have had more time with him.