Healing journey

It was May 2021. Mumbai was under strict lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The cases of infection were all time high. The rate of mortality had also been increased during this period. A lot of my friends and relatives contracted the infection. A lot of them even lost their lives. This was the time then I was contacted by a lot of friends with whom I was completely out of touch. One such incident occurred during this time.

It was a regular working day and I was completely engrossed in completion of the deliverable. My phone buzzed. I saw a text message "Hi". It was from my school friend Gauri, I had not spoken with her in a long time.

I immediately assumed the worse - what if she is infected and needs help? What if someone in her family is unwell and need help? Maybe something is wrong. There was only one way to find out - by texting and asking her.

"Hi. How are you?" I replied and waited her her to revert. The fear of unknown and anticipation was making me nervous.

"Thank you," she replied. I read the reply again to ensure I was reading it correctly. Several thoughts ran through my mind - why it she thinking me? Did I accidentally sent her money from my account? What did I exactly do that she is thinking me? Her reply left me puzzled and confused.

"Why are you thanking me?" I had to ask her.

"I am on my healing journey. I recently completed a course on how to heal ourselves. In that course we were told that we should thank the people in our life as one of the healing milestones. Every day for 30 days we have to send appreciative and positive text messages to family and friends, letting them know how important they are. This is how we heal. I started doing that today and your name appeared first in my contact list. So I texted you. Anyway now that you know thank you for being a part of my healing journey," this was the reply I received from Gauri.

I read the message at least two times. It was not only baffling but bizarre. Personally I really do not like this kind of activities and I never want to be a part of them. I always excuse myself from these kind of discussions about healing. At the same time reading her text made me angry because I had unnecessarily wasted 30 minutes of my time worrying about her health and wellbeing. I felt like I should switch off my phone. But I couldn't do that because of the responsibilities I had. I sent her a simple text which I believed would tell her that I am not interested in any such journey, "okay". I felt really irritated with the entire exchange. I decided to forget it and concentrate back on my work.

Next day I received another text from Gauri, "I appreciate your presence in my life". This was another facepalm moment for me. I did not want to be a part of this "healing" what Gauri was doing. I had to be direct with her, though it may hurt her.

After giving a good thought and 15 minutes of my time I finally came up with a good draft that was direct but polite, "Hi Gauri. I am glad that you are on your healing journey. However, I believe I am not the right person to accompany you. Hope you find a right person to take you ahead. All the best," I clicked on send. I did not know whether she was upset with my reply or it was another part of her healing. After sending that text message to her I definitely felt a lot relieved.

Thankfully next day onwards I did not receive any text message about "healing" from her. I presume she healed.