What matters?

When Viola Davis won the Academy award for best supporting actress in the year 2016, she gave one of the most memorable speeches ever.

She spoke about dead people in cemeteries.She said, “People ask me all the time: ‘What kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola? And I say, exhume those bodies, exhume those stories. The stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost.”

Although, I felt odd when I heard the speech live two years ago, the meaning of it became clear to me roughly three weeks back, when after Sunday mass I paid a visit to my father’s niche in the church graveyard.

Often at times, I simply walk past the niches and the graves – the graves make me feel sombre thinking about the dead bodies lying underneath the slab covers, decomposing over time, while the niche fascinate me because generations of family members have entombed their remains together. Some of these niches even have a photo of the deceased, along with their names, the dates of their birth and death and the typical “In ever loving memory of” quote.

Of these, one niche particularly catches my eyes every time I visit the graveyard off lately.

It is the niche of one Kenneth Barboza. It is unlike any other in the graveyard. It is covered in marble and instead of the regular quote, there is a poem alongside a picture of a smiling Kenneth.

Kenneth and I were school friends back when I studied at St. Thomas High School till the academic year 2004-2005. I am pretty sure we both were in the same classes (6D, 7C) but I cannot be certain about it after so many years later now. The only year I vividly remember is the 8th standard class, wherein we both ended up in the same class 8E.

I was part of a group that consisted of Kenneth, Quinton, Sanjeev, Rahul, Hemant and me. Sitting on the first two benches of the row closest to the door, we got along a house on fire. Well, I was the weird kid in class, but my friends made sure I was never left out. I remember Kenneth as a sweet, chubby guy with whom I would exchange tiffins during recess – he would gorge on the chapatti-bhaji I brought, while I would eat up those sandwiches & parathas his mother would pack for him.

I really have fond memories of enjoying recess time with my gang. We would run and play hide-and-seek, running along the corridors, trying to think of best possible ways to avoid submitting our homework to the teachers, etc. Over the course of the year, Kenneth drifted apart, after his seat got changed while Quinton and I stayed friends and so are to this day.

After that, I switched to a different school for two years and avoided Sunday school in fear of meeting my old, snotty classmates again. It would take one more year for me to see Kenneth again.

Kenneth had completely transformed. Gone was the chubby boy and now stood a thin, handsome young man. He still wore the same spectacles, but his hairstyle had evolved, making him look more like those princes from Disney movies. I was too amazed at his transformation that upon recognizing him, I did not even approach him that day or any other time after that. I occasionally spotted him sometimes after mass, accompanied with his family.

And then one day, I heard that Kenneth passed away.

I could not believe my ears, when my sister brought the news to me. Kenneth, along with his brother and a group of friends, were involved in a terrible accident – the details being vague, presumably lost in the spread of gossip along with this tragic news. I remember about Kenneth dying on the spot while his younger brother fighting for his life at the hospital.

I was beyond shocked. There are no words that I can use to describe the impact I felt upon hearing of Kenneth’s demise. I had never felt like that before. Surely, I had seen my parents die before me, but the fact of a boy of my age, departing life so young, rocked me to the bone. Agreed that we were not on speaking terms, but still his death moved me deeply. I couldn’t even fathom what his parents would be going through in that moment.

At the funeral mass, I saw Kenneth’s father, Francis, leading the procession, bawling and yelling at the top of his voice; his friends crying and holding up the coffin along with him. His mother was shocked in silence. She had a deadened expression on her tear-stained face and she was not even able to walk and was supported by weeping women.

The entire mass I was in a daze. I thought of the family’s sorrow, I thought of Keith battling for life in the hospital and Kenneth, the life of a promising young man cut so short tragically. Death laid waste to his once handsome features I noted as I went to pay my last respects.

When I look at the niche entombing his remains now, I think of Kenneth’s dreams; the dreams that never came to fruition. His life goals that he dreamed big, but did not live long to see it accomplished. If he were alive today, he could have achieved so much in life. He could have been in love or married by now, but destiny, it seemed, conspired to deliver a cruel blow to him and his family, similarly to all those young people lying in the graveyard.

So many stories, so many fights – all those lives lost over time. I sometimes wonder what could have happened. Kenneth was one such life. So was, baby Nathan George, who died after just 4 days.

Life is unpredictable. We are all living in uncertainty, without the slightest bit of knowledge of what is going to happen next.  All of our lives spent in the quest for money, career, stability, only to know that in the end, it was only love that mattered.