The last episode of Made in Heaven closes with the below narration –

Sometimes heaven doesn’t ordain a companion for us. Some of us are meant to travel alone. Our happiness is not defined in coming together but in letting go. Maybe we need to love ourselves before we can love another. Or maybe we are destined to live in hope. Either way, no feeling is final. And once we realize that we learn to cherish what we have. We remember to hold the magic close. To embrace the fleeting moments that tell us that we belong. Moments when we feel joy. When we know free. When we have a friend who sees our need. And then, just like a shimmering firefly that flashes its light and disappears into the darkness, we have our one taste of heaven and it’s worth a lifetime. 

Happiness to some comes as a full pie with nuts they don’t like, or as a slice of their liking. Sometimes, even a sliver. Living from one slice and sliver to the next then becomes a lifetime of collection of small change as Kamala Das puts it in her poem ‘my grandmother’s house’ –

Can you, that I lived in such a house and
Was proud, and loved…. I who have lost
My way and beg now at strangers’ doors to
Receive love, at least in small change?

So an entire lifetime goes by waiting for these bits, like coming up for a fresh breath of air, and then slowly drowning in one’s loneliness till the next breath of air or till you find happiness in the little under currents swaying you in their arms. A feeling of sinking in the known, not chosen, but comfortable place to be in. A place where you have settled down to find happiness. Every slice of heaven then, is a celebration of life itself.

Its another form of emotional abuse, influenced previously by external forces. Where the survivor has to build this new norm of settling alone, finding happiness, waiting for the crumbs, while there are others outside with their full pie and nuts. It is a constant struggle to survive, on your own in a crowd, cacophonous silence amidst the noise, a drop in the mighty ocean. Waiting.. hoping.. for sunshine…