I knew it had to be about somebody's unfortunate and premature death. I prepared myself for the awful news that was coming.
"You remember "M"'s grandson--the son of "S"?" she asked, not as a question but more as a preface. By then I knew what was coming.
"He died a few days ago."
He was a kid, who was in the final year of his teenage phase of life. A freshman at Stanford. The cancer that he had battled against, the battle that I thought he had won a couple of years ago, had come back in a nasty manner.
After the phone call, I remembered "S" telling me a couple of years ago how this kid had taken on a couple of initiatives to spread cancer awareness and to raise funds to wipe out the dreaded "C" word. I was confident that the newspaper I grew up with would have something about him.
The paper does have a lengthy piece on the kid's demise.
Akash Dube, a symbol of courage and resolve for so many cancer patients across the country, succumbed to the very disease earlier this month. A freshman at Stanford, this 19-year-old spent the last few months in the hospital, battling against the disease and undergoing multiple rounds of intensive chemotherapy19! I mean, nineteen!
Akash initiated and organized the Terry Fox runs in Chennai, and raised money for cancer research and treatment.
What do you tell a mother whose son died at 19? What do you tell a 83-year old whose grandson passed away? Life is simply cruel, sometimes.Akash Dube wanted to wipe out cancer. He wanted a world where no one would know of this six-letter fiend, a disease whose grip seems to only be tightening around us with each passing day. Akash envisioned a world where cancer is spoken of in the same breath as the bubonic plague and tuberculosis; as epidemics that ruined thousands of lives in the past but also as diseases that man no longer needs to be afraid of....Akash Dube was a teenager, just like you and me. Yet, he fought for what he truly believed in and worked towards the greater good. He had a vision, a mission and a road map. Akash Dube taught us that no hurdle is too much to cross, no goal is too big to aspire towards and there is no such thing as overambitious.
1 comment:
Awfully awfully cruel. Too sad for words.
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