There usually comes a time in our lives when we reach cross-roads where, one road, with its bumps and steep slope, leads to our dreams; while the other, with its seemingly smooth and gentle build, leads to much easier victories. The choices we make at these cross-roads have the ability to either build or destroy us – and, for most of us, these choices lead to latter. This is because we seem to always choose the easy way out. We tend to always choose easy money over passion, as if choosing passion automatically means you will never get the money, and this has caused many to die decades before the pronouncement of their deaths.

The past couple of weeks have caused me more pain than I’ve ever experienced in my short but very eventful life. My return back home in December, meant to be a time for relaxing and reuniting with friends and family, saw me have the difficult experience of seeing a person – a beloved friend and brother – show signs of deterioration. I returned home to see, in the eyes where I once saw a vibrant and energetic soul, an empty space with a darkness that’s seemingly growing by the day.

***

Thing is, growing up, when things were not going the way we wanted them to, the things that kept me and most of my friends going were the dreams of a better future for ourselves that we all had. And, like with many other things that are shared between friends, some dreams were much bigger and bolder than others. But, irrespective of how big and bold some of our dreams were, none were bigger and bolder than that of my friend – let’s call him X. This guy had big dreams and, to be honest, fewer people had the potential to reach their dreams more than he did.

Unlike most of us in the group, X was raised in a family where his very presence sparked heated arguments between him and the rest of his family. As a result, besides hanging around with us, dreaming of a better future became the only way he could cope with living. He, in more ways than most, lived his life mentally stuck in a future he hoped to have, while physically in a present one he wished he never had.

Our friendship was different from those we had with the rest of the members of the group. Like two broken souls that found comfort in each other’s company, our friendship took on a serious form from the very early stages of our encounters. It developed from ‘just knowing each other,’ to friends, to best friends, as quickly as it did when we drifted apart the past couple of years.

We had dreams. Dreams of taking over the world, or at least the small part of it where we live, and we were determined to achieve them. We used to dream, mostly with our eyes wide open, of days when our words would change minds and shift perspectives. But, over the years, his smoking habits suffocated his dream from the smoke he inhaled – literally. The after-effects of his habits caused more than just double vision, it caused him to lose sight of his dreams and give up on them.

***

I have always been amazed by how the physical manifestations of a person who has given up on their dreams never seem to hide themselves from the prying eyes of the world. They are visible for any and all to see. If it’s not the slight change in the way he/she speaks, it is the loss of spark in their eyes or the lost bounce in their step. Seeing all these things in my friend was painful.

But, even with these physical manifestations doing their bit to make bare to me the state of his despair, it’s the unseen suffering that I know he goes through alone that kills me the most. The truth is: the things that kill us the most are the things no one but ourselves gets to see – and the most lethal one of them all is the knowledge that, had we worked harder, had we taken all the risks we needed to take, we would probably be the person we were meant to be. His silent sufferings, and having to deal with everything he goes through alone, has left him more broken than I’ve ever seen him before.

Langston Hughes, the famous American poet, once asked what happens to a dream deferred, and the truth is, I don’t know. But I do know what happens to the person to whom the dream once belonged. The world, with its emphasis on celebrating those who made it, regardless of the problems they faced, becomes a constant reminder of who they would have been if they had taken the risks. They become gloomy shadows of their once vibrant selves and walk around like haunting ghosts whose prolonged presence on earth is an agony, especially to themselves.

I really don’t know what to do, or what to say, when a once joyful face that was prevalent in the prosperous future I once envisioned, seems to have started to fade away. When this very face, which once grinned with happiness, slowly becomes a shadow and ghost of a once joyous time, haunting me with memories that I once wished would never end.

All I know is this: It’s hard to see a person that once was cease to be but it’s even harder to see a person that should’ve been never become.