It is spring time in the northern hemisphere, and much like the blossoms there are innumerable bird species feeding, nesting, and rearing their hatchlings. A few days back, I had the chance to watch a pair of adult sparrows teach their young hatchling how to fly. Each time they flew to a nearby branch encouraging the baby to flap its wing, the young chick hopped and showed its effort. I am sure by the end of the day the baby must have taken its first flight and one of these days it will deftly explore the sky much like its experienced parents.
In my own household, I heard some whispered discussions on Mother’s Day celebration plans between my son and his father, which brought a gush of memories that mostly remain guarded in a silent corner of the mind lest they would overwhelm me. It was two years back that I last wished my mother on this day, only to realize the next year, that it was the last one.
Mothers are special for every one of us, but perhaps for each in a different way. My mother was an organized, meticulous, disciplinarian, who was in complete control of her emotions and sense of reason.
With such a mother, sometimes you might actually believe in the story your older siblings would concoct as of how you did not belong to the family and were picked up from a deserted place out of sheer mercy. Siblings can be nasty at times without realizing.
Her quiet demeanor and restrained emotion always made it difficult to bear the last few minutes before I left home for hostel every time. But inadvertently, it helped in shaping an independent and emotionally balanced approach to life and circumstances.
I remember the first time she was preparing me for this long and perhaps never ending pursuit of a life away from home, the only piece of advice I received from her was to be aware of the world around. She was a die-hard realist and life through her prism was beautiful and worth living when it was based on truth. I might have missed the fairytales narrated to me in early life, but living each day with an awareness, empathy, and sensibility of the world around, made life worth living indeed.
Her health was never sturdy as long as my memory goes. But she was an excellent cook, who entertained our sweet tooth with delicious jalebies, numerous kinds of halwas, and finger licking snacks. Her aesthetic sense was unmatched and her gardening acumen complimented her finer taste for natural fragrance of jasmine and roses. She was socially naïve and her world just comprised of her family and a realistic worldview with tremendous sense of responsibility and empathy for the socially underprivileged. For her, human dignity mattered the most and perhaps it was that streak in her, which never made her outpour her vulnerable emotions.
When she was diagnosed of lymphoblastic leukemia, we could not keep the news from her for long. She was too well-informed to be duped even for a single day, and we were too inarticulate in front of her to weave any story. It was for the first time that I realized, how handy it would have been, had she also taught us the art of telling beautiful, eloquent lies. But no, she had another lesson to teach us through her life’s trajectory, and surely it was the toughest to learn. It was the acceptance of grief with grace.
Even on the hospital bed her thoughts wandered over our troubled faces, and she put a brave front to not let us feel dejected. The doctor was surprised how well her fragile body resisted the onslaught of the deadly disease. All this while, what she did not give a miss was her unflinching concern for our well-being and the sense of orderliness around. There was a table by her bedside, cluttered with medicine bottles and essential stuffs, which did not grab my attention until one day I saw it arranged and sorted. I turned to her and she passed a faint smile.
It gripped me with a sense of void of how ruffled life would be without her perfect touch and I could not hold back my tears. But I was wrong, part of all what she stood for, still lives with me. Every lesson she taught reverberates in my memory like a guiding force, teaching me firsthand how to be a mother indeed. And at times when my child arranges his locker space just before our visit to his classroom, I chuckle at the thought of cracking some early breakthrough.