The Scratched Ring

Sandhya came running out of the flames carrying an old man on her shoulder. She handed the old man carefully to her partner on the ladder and then went back into the flames to find others.

Once the rescue operation was over Sandhya stood there exhausted, drinking some water. Few drops of water drizzled on her hand. Making their way to her ring they finally sat there shining in the yellow lights of the parked vehicles. They were making her otherwise old scratched ring to sparkle like a newly cut diamond.

It was 3 years ago but I could still recall the day that ring got all those scratches, just like it happened yesterday. We had just moved into our new house. Since there was no direct access to the roof, I had bought a small wooden ladder from the local market. I was carefully instructing my fragile wife of 1 month on how to climb the ladder to reach the roof. It was the stupid fourth step of the ladder that couldn't even bear the weight of a thin childlike Sandhya and snapped. She fell to the ground and started crying almost immediately. While she was trying to examine her hand for injuries she registered that her ring had taken a serious blow and was scratched and bent beyond recovery. This almost doubled her pain. Only after a lot of effort I was able to console her. Promising her that I'll get it repaired in the evening, I left for work.

Everyone including me was almost certain that Sandhya would decline the fire department's offer of a job. Asking a small girl to be a firefighter, was a stupid question in itself we all thought. But we were all wrong, she had something else in mind.

July 15th 2012 Sandhya Singh joined the Fire Service Department as a Jr. FireFighter in place of her deceased husband who lost his life while trying to rescue a child from fire.

I wish I could have got her ring repaired. I wish I could have escaped that fire. But most of all I wish I could tell her how proud she has made me.

"Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself." -- Walter Anderson