Fond memories of my friend, Maisa

Maisa and I met when we were 10 years old. Her grandfather and my father were both serving in the government together at the time. Our parents were also friends. However, Maisa and I did not meet in that context. We became friends because we both went to the American International School in Baridhara and lived in Dhanmondi. This meant that we took the same school bus to school and home everyday. It was during these rides back and forth across town that our friendship grew. Sometimes we use to get off at each other's houses to play after school. Then Maisa went away to live in Bahrain and on to boarding to school in Singapore and we only saw each other during the holidays.

After we both graduated from college in 1997, Maisa and I found ourselves living in the same Dhanmondi neighbourhood again. We were both back with degrees and trying to figure out what we wanted to do with lives. We spent many days talking and soon found that we had something in common. We both had this obligatory feeling inside us to live and work for our country. We talked about whether or not we thought we would settle in Dhaka and how growing up in international schools gave us other options and dreams. Somehow both of us always shunned these dreams out and concluded by saying that we would end up working in our country.

In 2004, Maisa and I were both living in New York City. We met up occasionally but not as often as I now wish we had. We saw each other more after she fell ill. When I met her it was just like any other time in the past that we spent together as Maisa never talked about having cancer or being in any pain. She would casually call me up to tell me that she was at Sloan Cancer Center, right behind my flat, to get chemotherapy and if I wanted to meet for coffee.

She continued working at her job. Sometimes she asked me if I thought her hair looked OK, as she had to shave it for her treatment. There were never any complaints about pain or any grief about how unfair life is -- it was always business as usual and in all the months after her diagnosis, she never once let me feel sorry for her or let me even realize for a second that she had cancer. In fact, most of the time I was with her, I forgot she even had cancer.

The last few times Maisa and I met were pivotal time in our lives. She attended my baby shower not with a present for my baby but with a present for me! It was the sweetest gesture and one I hope I thanked her enough for. Another night, her mom cooked us a very special Moroccan meal at their flat. Over dinner we talked very excitedly about Maisa's upcoming wedding. She also showed me photos of her handsome fiance and told me about her plans to go to Cambridge University to do her MBA.

I was overwhelmed with admiration and respect. Here was my friend who had a brain tumor and who did not know how long she would live grabbing life by its neck and marching forward. I gained even more respect for her when a mutual friend whom I had told about Maisa's illness called me and asked if I was sure about what I had said. She said she recently spoke to Maisa and that Maisa did not mention anything at all about being ill let alone having cancer! How could I explain to her that I was in much awe as she was!

The last time I saw Maisa was when she came over to see my newborn baby. We sat like two schoolgirls in the back of a school bus talking, as we did so many times in the past, about our plans. She asked me how it felt to be a mother and how she looked forward to the day she would have children of her own. I told her I was moving to Bangladesh and she told me about her plans to move to London. I did not know that it would be our last conversation. To me, it was like all the other conversations we had ever had: making plans to move ahead into the future that lay ahead of us.

You see, even in her illness, Maisa never looked back. In all the times we spoke while she had cancer she talked about things like her admission into Cambridge, job opportunities, trips she was planning to take, and her upcoming wedding. I do not know where she drew her strength from.

Today, when I drive past her Dhanmondi house, just across the lake from mine, I will remember my old friend Maisa as someone who truly lived a large life and not as someone who suffered a single day in her illness. In her astonishing life she not only accomplished highly in her academics and career, she also experienced something very rare that many people don't find in their lifetime. You see Maisa's fiance, Ian, married her a few months before she passed away. So Maisa left this world knowing life's sweetest gift of love. Therefore, in my mind, there is no doubt that my friend Maisa left this world with a smile on her face and warmth in her heart.