One of my mails to my friend about my mother triggered lots of memories about my mom. Suddenly it dawned on me that the coming sunday is mothers' day.
Well all moms are special is an often used cliche. My mom was also very special in her own way. As a child I was very close to my dad. Even though I loved my mom very much, it was always my father to whom I used to run for every little thing.
When I completed my high school, like any other school girl I bought an autograph book so that I could get the signatures of my teachers and friends. I wanted the first page to be written by my mother. She wrote lovely advice in tamil asking me to be a nice girl. In school one of the teachers, who knew tamil read the lines to whole class and said it was very nice of me to have made my mom write. (it is an another story, that my brother took my autograph book without my knowledge and made my dad also write which I some how did not want , and he had written a 'tirukural' and which made me so angry with the lovely brother of mine). One of the professor in college wanted to know if my mother was a famous personality as I had taken her autograph. she had signed Lakshmi and within brackets had written ,amma, in tamil. I was so livid with anger just like any other teenager getting angry for no reason and said proudly ' for me my mom is a famous personality'.
I could see our relationship changing and I became much more closer, after I got a daughter of my own and I felt I could understand her better.
The real mother I could see only when she went through lot of crisis in life . The mother who controlled her cries, when my dad died in hospital so that it would not disturb other patients.
The mother who took care of my kid when I went away for training in Mumbai Jullundar without any complaint.
The mother who had lost almost sight in one eye due to glucoma and wrong diagnosis of a doctor, never complained but continued her simple hand works and reading of magzines.
Then suddenly without warning , she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took it in the right spirit and listened to the doctor like a dutiful pupil and went through all the cycles of chemo thearapy and radiation without complaining, of course with great help from all my sisters in law ( 'mannis' ) and sister(God bless them). I had lost my father by then, but my aging grand parents were alive and my mom was their only daughter. She recovered remarkably well and became normal. I was so proud of her, that I took her back to our railway colony where she was diagnosed with the disease, and showed her off to the world , that my mom was well and most normal. She never spoke of her ailments and except for the near relatives and friends many did not even know that she was treated for cancer. So she lived to take care of her aging parents very well.
She was diagnosed with secondaries thirteen years later. By then she had seen grand kids from all her children and also great grand kids from a daughter as well as a son. This time also she bore the disease very strongly. But I never understood that she will succumb to it and I thought like first time she will recover fast. My sister in law and myself always joked when we took her for chemo saying no body will know who the patient is as she looked more healthy and cheerful than us.
I had seen her on January 8th when she was perfectly ok without knowing it was the last time I was seeing her. She was deteriorating by end of March, but was moving around the house on her own. I had my own family to take care and last time when I spoke to her over phone she insisted that my kids are more important to me, and I should visit her only when I was free which was just ten days away. But that was not to be. She died on April 4th, and was conscious till almost the end and died very peacefully. It was a miracle that she did not feel much pain which is so dreadful about cancer and did not even take powerful painkillers which was given to her. I was told that she must have been aware that she is losing time but she never showed it or spoke about it. But at least I was fortunate that I could come to Bangalore before cremation, which I could not do for my dad.
Only one thing I regretted. Even though I made her feel that I loved her very much, I still don't know whether I told her HOW MUCH I LOVED HER. I should have told her I loved her as much as I loved my father if not more. May be she knew it heart of heart.
I learnt from her to face the crisis of life with smiling face, and never to let her guard down and keep her sorrows to herself. amma at least let me tell you now loudly that I love you very much.
