Thursday 10 September 2020

Memoir: My Mom, The Power in Me


It was May 2006, a week before my mom left for her heavenly abode. I haven’t met her in the last five months after my wedding day. She knew things had been difficult for me as my husband has just lost his father to cancer a month after our marriage, so she came to stay with us for a week. Honestly, I can’t be more grateful to the Almighty for giving me those last seven days with her which were perhaps some of the best mom-daughter times we had spent together and are forever etched on my heart. 

We talked every night, she told me that she was very happy with my choice, that my husband was a genuinely good man and that now she is assured that we will be able to take good care of my younger brother who has moved in to live with us for his studies. During those night, I had often put my head on her lap and rested there for hours while she stroked my hair and kept talking in her soft silky voice. She was a professor of Sanskrit and a very balanced human who wanted to pass on to her daughter all the learnings she had amassed from life and a difficult marriage, her principles of Karma and I loved listening to her with a whirlwind of infinite emotions lost in my own trajectory of thoughts.

In that one week, she filled my kitchen with all my favorite things which she made everyday when I went to office like my favorite pickles that lasted for so long more so as I ate them so sparingly to keep the taste of her fingers alive with me for as long as I can. She also made a very pretty dress for me which is most precious for me till today. I wear it on all important occasions often. My heart was heavy when she was going back. I didn’t know this would be the last time she was kissing and hugging me.

The next week she was gone forever. Such is the love of a mother, I fail to fathom if she has had premonitions that she was going and came to bless her children one last time but her sudden demise definitely shattered me completely. The last time we spoke minutes before she left, she has told me to never give up and take care of my younger brother and her last words made me put together those shattered pieces as I yearn to keep my promises till today. I hope she is happy to see us from heavens above.

My mother is the power in me. She still comes in my dreams and guides me, in those dreams I still get to put my head on her lap and I wake up all smiling. My little one wants to know about nani so much and I often narrate her tales to him. That way I see her living with us. She was and will always be my support system. As a mother I emulate her today engraining the same values in my little one, that’s my tribute to her. 

Truth be told, no matter what I say, I miss her deeply every day and crave for that lap to hide myself forever.

Truly Yours Roma


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