(Part 2/4) “I have always put my family before anything else. I do not know how to express the love I have for my wife. The feelings of the hearts reside in the heart. Chini Maya was a kind woman. While I went away on long treks as a porter, she stayed home and looked after my father and mother. After a year we had our first child. God gifted us a daughter and the dark and cold family home became bright and warm. Laughter was common and we also started cooking good food and eating well. My father and mother were happy to see their son finally raise a family. But one day, as usual, father had gone out to forage and he fell from a tree. He could not make it. And sadness befell on our family. One after another my brothers started to die. I could not handle the trauma and it affected my mental balance. You see, when I was 12 a falling stone had landed on my head and I had almost died. Although I had opened my eyes the next day, I was not mentally aware of the things around me for a month. The injury in my head and the present trauma was also not helping me cope with the bad things that were happening in my life. I stopped working. With no men in the family that could bring home money or food, everything became scarce. I could not send the children to school nor could I give them proper food. I cursed my fate. I asked God, “What sins have I committed in my previous life for you to punish me in this life?”

For all of this, Chini Maya stayed with me. She stayed strong. Every day she pushed me that I come out of my grief and start working. She said, “You have to be strong. You are the man of the family now. We need to take your brother’s children in and treat them as ours for they have lost their father and their mother can only do so much.” Chini Maya made me realize that I had to outgrow my sadness and start working again for the unable children in the family. She suggested that with the savings we had we buy Chauri and construct a new Goth. We did. I got back to work. Again, the food was enough for all of us and I was starting to live a normal life. But my sufferings had not satiated God. In the days to come, I had to suffer more. I had to live more.”