It is with a grieving heart that I write about Razaa's sudden demise on 12th May08. Razaa had woken up briefly that morning at 7:30 AM to take love from her mother (Nancy) and then she again went to sleep. When Nancy went to wake her up at 8:15AM she was no more. Her death came as a shock to all of us. She wasn't sick or anything. We suspect that she may have died of a sudden bout of apnea.

Her death left us with a lot of questions - what was the meaning of her short life? Did she come on this earth to give us a message or to teach us? Why did she go through so much pain in her short life? ...and the list goes on...these are questions to which we will probably never have answers. There are somethings in life which are not really in our control.

As Paulo Coelho has said in his Book "The Fifth Mountain" -

"You can't stop the unavoidable!"

"Life is made of our attitudes. And there are certain things that the gods oblige us to live through. Their reason for this does not matter, and there is no action we can take to make them pass us by".

Razaa's name meaning God's Will was no accident. She had come to teach us the important lesson of acceptance.

In her short life razaa went through a lot of ups and downs...she was born prematurely (at 6 months) and was kept in the hospital for over a month where she went through a sepsis shock, a kidney failure, a heart problem, a serious eye condition because of which she started wearing spectacles even before the age of 2. But she kept fighting back all odds and always showed us the silver lining.

So far she was doing fine cognitively but her motor milestones were very delayed. She was still not able to walk or stand on her own. She was going through extensive physiotherpy and occupational therapy. She had also gone through a foot surgery recently before trying the botox treatment which did not work for her .

She had started going to school and had a beautiful relationship with her teacher. Her teacher adored her and took very good care of her while she was at school.

Razaa had an amazing memory! She was very quick at learning poems, numbers, new words and had started recognizing alphabets, shapes and colours. No wonder her teacher was soooo impressed with her learning abilities.

Watching Oswald or Noddy and listening to music was her passion. Nancy (razaa's mother) could make her do exercises/physiotherapy while razaa would be lost in music. Music really soothed and comforted her.

Razaa was very fortunate to recieve a lot of love and support from her family and friends. Her parent's changed the course of their life happily to adjust to razaa's routine of physiotherapy, occupational therapy and doctor visits. Her mother would think of innovative and entertaining ways of making razaa do her routine physiotherapy/occupational therapy. They were working hard to rehablitate razaa so that she could grow up to be independent.

But life had something else in store for her...on 12th May, 2008 she just stopped breathing. No prior illness or no sign of any discomfort. She just didn't get up. She was 3 years and 2 months.

In this short journey, not only razaa's family and friends but a lot of people across the world came together to pray for this little angel. Most of these people have never met razaa or our family. They formed a beautiful connection with us through their healing prayers. For the last 3 years, i have been sending updates to these people via emails and they have always responded back with so much of love and support. Now also, when they heard about razaa's demise, all these people touched our lives with their love and blessings. Thank you!!

Razaa loved playing with musical instruments like “tabla” or “harmonium”.