Death at close quarters

She died at the tender age or 16 or 17 of blood cancer. This was one of the most tragic experiences in my adolescent years. I was 15, when the school came to know that Urmila ( name changed) had leukemia. Till then we had seen instances of it in movies where the hero or heroine died of blood cancer. But this was my first experience of death at close quarters. The bone marrow transplant had been discovered but Urmila could not get a donor.
I saw her when she came to school to collect her school leaving certificate. Her face was pale and she was wearing a mask on her face. After a few months we got the news that Urmila had succumbed to Leukemia.
Whenever I think of her I wonder whether she had known the all important emotion of love. Perhaps yes and perhaps no. In either case she must have experienced deep pain on knowing that she had been afflicted with Leukemia.
An army officer's daughter Urmila had a cushy life and was the most brilliant among her siblings. When I look back on the incident I feel God also takes away the most lively and the most bubbly. Perhaps up in heaven he needs lively people.
I dedicate this post to the memory of Urmila, a pretty girl who died at sixteen.