“Finally, I get to see the dawn of this blessed day,” Fareeha was being dramatic. “It’s the day of freedom from exam for eternity!” she screamed joyously from her bed.

Her mum came running to her room, worried that Fareeha may have hurt herself. As she entered her room, her worry turned into slight anger.

“I know it’s your last day of college, but not ours, so keep it down a notch,” she nodded smilingly.

Fareeha was on her way to the college when she got into the accident. She woke up to the doctor’s voice explaining her injuries to her family.

“What happened?” she asked. Her mother told her about the accident and her broken leg. How could this happen? It was her last exam, she had worked hard for four years to get here and it all came to a halt.

Her brain was processing the situation. It would take more than a month to get back to her feet. And then she would have to repeat one subject for the whole semester. There was no other choice.

When her friends came to meet her, all she could think about was, they are graduates and she is stuck for another year probably.

It had been a few weeks since the accident. During this time another patient, Rabia was moved to her room. She had lost both her legs in a car crash. Being in the same room, Fareeha and Rabia came to know little about each other. One thing that Fareeha noticed about Rabia was that she was always in a pleasant mood. Self-pity was non-existent for her.

One day while they were playing a board game, Fareeha asked her, “I have never seen you sad or crying since the day you came here. What makes you keep going in such circumstances?”

Rabia said in response, “Either I can cry all my life for what I lost or I can get myself together and achieve the goals that I still can. If I keep living the way I was before, with slight alteration given the current circumstances, life will be easier and more joyful. It is better than only feeling sorry for myself and making it more painful.”

Fareeha was surprised to listen to this kind of reasoning. She had never felt this stupid her whole life. She realised if someone with so much loss can see light at the end of the tunnel, why can’t she? Her broken leg bone was healing. She could walk soon. All her anger dissolved into eagerness to get back to her feet and give that last exam she had been waiting for so much. Just one more semester, it was nothing compared to Rabia’s endless suffering and permanent loss.

“I will ace it like never before,” Fareeha told herself as she had gained strength came from someone else’s courage to go on.

Fareeha felt that the darkest cloud of hopelessness now had a bright silver lining. Clearly, the fog of hopelessness lifted when Rabia became the torchbearer of light for Fareeha in her hard times. All the opportunities that were out of Fareeha’s reach seemed closer than ever for her.

Published in Dawn, Young World, July 17th, 2021