A Star Foretells

In her moment of despair, a little star, high above, gives Leela Krishnamohan the hope that,“Every little thing is gonna be alright,”.

- Leela Krishnamohan

On a warm Sunday afternoon, with all my chores done, I sat listening to music, indulging in a bit of ‘me time’. It was the Reggae genre of music and the singer was the famous artiste Bob Marley.

“Every little thing is gonna be alright...” he sang in his enchanting Jamaican accent. He sounds so sure, I thought, but how does he know that everything is going to be alright? How fortunate to have so much faith, to be so certain, to have no doubts at all, and no fear of the future, secure in the conviction that there is a force greater than ourselves watching over us and over those whom we love.

Most of the time, like many of us do, I feel as insignificant as the proverbial grain of sand on a beach. Occasionally, however, I am left awestruck and wondering at the mysterious ways in which we feel singled out to receive messages, almost literally out of the blue, messages of hope and comfort which transform us in significant ways.

The frightening diagnosis

Many years ago, on a perfectly ordinary day, our lives were turned upside down by a frightening diagnosis. My little son was diagnosed with a neurological problem. Things happened fast after that. Visits to doctors, telephone calls, faxes sent and received, tests and scans at the hospital laboratory, waiting in dread for the reports, and sitting up all night frantically searching for more information on the Internet. Finally, the day came when, almost insane with anxiety, I waited in a hospital room high up on the 10th floor, while down below on the second floor, my child lay in the ICU in a post-operative haze after a major neurosurgical procedure, which was considered cutting edge at the time. This had to be every mother’s nightmare.