Dear Mom,
Today seems like a good day to tell the world about you. Not just
because there is a sense of celebration about the power of womanhood or about the
limitless capabilities that women like you possess or even about the countless
sacrifices that you all account for in providing for the lovely lives that we
lead. It’s a good time mom because amid the cheer of your power, it seems most opportune
for me to confess to you my fears, my powerlessness and the utter sense of
insecurity that the realization of mortal laws brings to me.
My sense of dependency on you scares me mom because it forces
me to blind myself to a future without you ever. Truth be told, you and I are
both running the mortality race and I wonder which of us two winning it would I
prefer: is the pain of living without you lesser painful than imagining leaving
you back in this world without me? I don’t know mom and I don’t want to think
about it at all because it makes me go weak in the knees.
It was two weeks ago Mom when aboard a flight from Hyderabad
at night, a single fleeting moment brought me close yet again to the closeness I
share with you. The air turbulence was slightly intense compared to other days
and in one awkward moment, the plane seemed to cut through an airpocket. The
subsequent thud that we felt surely must have increased God’s call log – each passenger’s
frozen lips seemed to murmur a certain prayer of hope. For me, the first and
last word in that gripping moment was ‘Mom’. I knew you couldn’t hear me at that
time given you must’ve been engrossed preparing dinner for me several nautical miles
away. But, I still uttered your name because that’s what I have done all my life
and it hasn’t changed one bit … From calling out to you while being chased by a
dog when I was 12 to summoning your presence while walking down a few metres
away from cab drop point to home in the din of the night when I was 22 or
seeing your photograph before critical results at school, high school and even
B-school .. it’s not changed one bit mom and I guess it never will.
The burden of life seems to have robbed you of so much ..
those wrinkles on your hands are contours that map me to my past .. each of
those criss-crosses being a telltale of all that you have taken away from
yourself and given me in the legacy of your selfless giving. You are my Atlas
that never shrugged!
I often ask myself a futile question: can I reciprocate ever
in equal volume? The answer is no, because you will never stop giving - being
the mother that you are - and I will never stop taking given I cannot ever have
enough of your benevolence – the credit-debit table is destined to be lopsided.
Dear Mom, I don’t know if you’re the best mother in the world –
how can you rank Gods – it’s blasphemy to believe that my God betters someone
else’s! But, what I do know is that you’re the best mother a son like me could ever
crave for. And the world may never understand why I write what I write, but I
know you will because like Sharon Doubiago, I too believe:
“My mother is a poem I'll never be able to write. though
everything I write is a poem to my mother.”
Happy Momen’s Day!
