All i am today i owe it to you MOM

Disclaimer : This is gonna be one emotional blog post for obvious reasons it is surrounded around the most strongest women i have seen in my life or shall ever see again – my mother. And so to cut down words was little tough. I need to work on my editing skills. 😦

As i was going through the “What next to blog” zone i came across the Daily Prompt  about My Favorite  -“What’s the most time you’ve ever spent apart from your favorite person? Tell us about it.” prompt alert. And i knew instantly what am gonna write.

My Mom being my favorite person in literal sense am gonna be apart from her for an entire lifetime now until i go to the grave and join her in heaven(assuming am not kicked to hell cause am no saint and my mother definitely making her place in heaven 🙂 ) So this is to you mother.

All i am today i owe it to you Mom ❤ 🙂

 My mom’s name was HAWAUMMA which means the first woman in someone’s life and hell yeah indeed she was. I don’t really wana talk about her childhood and keep this blog boring; but i do want to tell that she has always been strong since a kid and she made her way through in life. Becoming a Teacher, being a Muslim she fell in love with my dad who is a Hindu they got married on Feb 10th 1980. Their love story is just like any other romantic story – romance, drama, action, conspiracy a complete Bollywood movie set in the 70’s and 80’s. They stood by one another through all the tough times against families and society norms (an inter religion marriage in India back in the 80’s was a big thing) and they lived happily for 31 years of wedded life. I can write it down on a paper anybody back home in Andaman Islands who knows them will definitely have something to tell you about the love these two pure souls shared. They were a symbol of perfect couple who stood by everything that came their way and made a world of their own.

I have seen how my mother used to take care of the entire house besides being a working mom. She was always there for bhaiya, I have an elder brother who is 34 now and married, for my dad for me for all her friends and relatives. She was the most warm person i have ever come across. She knew me and i am sure she is the only person who knew me in and out. She always gave me assurance about how good i am as a daughter, as a person. She always welcomed people in her home with open arms and lots of love in her heart. She always like any other mom would do kept her happiness secondary to everybody else’s in the house. A particular dress i wanted for my dance program or that new gadget my brother wanted or a new furniture piece for the house she always was the one to compromise. 

I remember that day when she first fell crashing on the floor, i was in my 6th std the year 2000 and had just woken up and suddenly i saw her falling down. She was rushed to the hospital and then the tests the reports came she was suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis – a chronic progressive disease causing inflammation in the joints and resulting in painful deformity and immobility, especially in the fingers, wrists, feet, and ankles. This was very new to people back home. And since then till 17th July 2011 when she left us all here alone i have seen her go through immense pain and suffering. Many reasons for that lack of knowledge about the whole disease, trying all possible kinds of healing Allopathy, Ayurveda, Homeopathy even doing all the non scientific stuff cause of the only hope that she would be better one day. 

Mom and Dad’s first portrait pic after their wedding, Mysore trip,dad and mom 25th anniversary pic, my first birthday, another anniversary pic, mom and me random pic(Mom was 45 and preparing for her MA exams, the ultimate wedding pic.

I am happy she is way far from all those suffering and pain and am sure she is having fun up there. I have learnt a million things from her that i carry in my heart every single day. Hundreds of promises that i had made to her that keeps me going strong. And some of them is what i want to share with you all.

#1 – Believe in yourself : She knew exactly what she always wanted to do. When everyone discouraged her she did what she knew was right in her head and her heart. She said believe in yourself and one day the world would believe in you.

#2 – Family is where love begins and ends : No matter how successful you become, how many friends you make, how many people come and go in your life- your family will always be there for you and more specifically your parents. They would scold you, ground you, be rude to you but they would always have good for you in their heart.

#3 – Never say no unless you have tried: I have seen her letting herself experiment with so many medications cause she believed unless u try how would u know its good or bad. Sometimes you would fail and sometimes you would succeed.  I have seen her preparing for her Post Graduation exam at the age of 45yrs and setting an example that age is just a number. The good part is whenever you failed you would know what never to do again or if doing it again how differently you can.

#4 – Value people who stand by you during your bad times: My mom had so many friends and she always valued them and treated them as family. In fact all my moms friends are more like my family than my extended relatives. She was always there for them and so were they for her. Its not in the good times you show friendship but times when everybody leaves you and you still have people backing you up those are the people you should cherish forever.

#5 – Do things that make you happy: My entire childhood i was busy getting trained in classical dance and performing stage shows. And she always stood by me as a support cause she knew that made me happy. And seeing her child happy was what made her happy in return. I know days when it was hard for her to even stand up on her own but she would come all the way in that pain to see me perform on the stage and would just say one thing  – “All my pain just vanishes when i see you on that big stage and people clapping for you. All my pain vanishes when you make me proud”. She always told me to pursue all those hobbies that bring happiness within me. Work is something you have to do to earn your bread, but things that you do to make you happy is what should be always done and never stopped. My dancing, writing everything comes from her.

#6 – Forgive and more importantly Forget: I am the kinds who always forgives easily but its very hard for me to forgive those people and my mom told this to me that what is the point of not letting go. What is the point in forgiving and not forgetting You only harm yourself doing that. One who forgives and one who forgets is much more bigger a person than the one who asks for forgiveness. I have seen so many people do wrong to her and yet she would love them respect them and treat them like her own. She said love can conquer the world and she did mean it. 

#7 – You would know how well you have done as a person on your funeral day: I always laughed at this as a kid cause i would question her how would you know cause you wont be alive right and she would just smile and tell you are a kid now, one day you will. I remember the day when her last rituals were being done and the number of people who had turned up to see her. I felt as if am some celebrity’s daughter for a sec cause i had only seen this in the movies or in the news when some famous person passed. Even weeks after she left there were so many people coming home to give pay condolences. All her students, colleagues in her entire career, every person whose life she touched just by her presence was there to give her a farewell. And that is the day i knew that when i leave this world i would want to go like this with so many people around me. 

#8 – There is never a tomorrow unless there is a today: There were days when i would not talk to her cause i would be caught up with work or be out with friends exploring the new independent life that i had as a career woman. And i would tell in my head i ll call mom tomorrow and then the tomorrow never came. Or the festival i kinda skipped to work those extra hours and was not home to be with mom and dad. And let me tell you this the day when life would hit you hard you would know what mistake you have done and you ll never get a chance to rectify it. I remember when i was leaving for a birthday party celebration it was almost a week now that i had not spoken to her even more cause she was unable to talk during the last days and i would always insist dad its okay i ll talk to her tomorrow. We partied hard came back and crashed into bed, we had a dinner party the next day. I wake up in the morning and i see calls from dad and relatives asking me and my brother who stayed in the same city to come home asap cause mom was in ICU and was critical. That day and the next day that followed  i wish i could just undo from my life. We booked tickets my brother and me flew to Kolkata then stayed overnight at the airport and on Monday we took flight to Port Blair, Andaman.  I remember getting down at the airport waiting for dad to come pick us up and i see many of my relatives and bhaiyas friends. We dint turn towards the hospital road instead we reach home. I remember getting down the car and seeing people all lined up around the corner of our street.Many unknown faces, few familiar ones and as i started taking a step closer to home i see all those eyes with tears, people who were my family there and it hit me that what i see when i enter the house would be something i would not even want to dream. I see her there in the living room lying in peace and eyes closed forever. I knew she was gone forever. And the number of things that came in mind i cant tell you people it still haunts me. All those times when i spoke to her in a louder tone, every time i did something which made her angry or disapointed her, every such incident which gave her pain, all those times when i saw “mom calling” on the mobile screen and i would put it on mute i had lost that chance of rectifying those mistakes. I would never get to tell her how much i loved her and how proud a daughter i was. I would never get a tomorrow. All i had was a today when i should have done things and i didn’t. 

Sometimes we are so involved in our lives that we forget to do those small gestures of love and kindness to our close and loved ones. We forget to tell our parents how much we love them whereas we are never too busy to tell our managers and leads about our project status. We always make time to get into a social gathering with colleagues or a business lunch that we attend but we chose to not attend those festival celebrations with our own siblings with whom we have grown up. We forget to take time to call up our friends and ask them how they have been doing but we make sure we ask our colleagues ‘hey dude how was the weekend?’. If only we realized all this now and not later when people are forever gone from our lives. I have been through breakup but i knew that person exists some where i could get back and say a hello any day i want to but when someone as close as your mom leaves its a void, you can never pickup a call and say a hello ever again. You can never get a chance to hear someones voice once they are gone forever. You can never get a chance to touch the person when they are gone forever. You can never ever once they are gone. 

So this is to all of you and me make time for your loved ones, make that 5 minutes in your life to call up the people who love you so unconditionally. Make it a point to call up your parents and tell them how much you love them and how proud a son or daughter you are. Call up those friends who were with you when even your family didn’t understand you. Call up your sibling who fought for you with parents and stood by you, who was your first friend. And to all those who are still standing by you and loving you value them. I am glad to have a dad who has never let me realize the loss of a mother. He has been my hero and shall forever be. I have learnt from him what it is to love unconditionally beyond physical appearance and looks, to take care of the loved ones first and think about yourself later. My mom’s story is complete if its not my dad who had been with her all those years of pain and suffering and instead just showered her with love,care, trust, faith and hope and the will to be a better person the next day. So call your loved ones now!!!

“If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane.I would walk right up to Heaven and bring you back again. No farewell words were spoken, No time to say “Goodbye”. You were gone before I knew it, and only God knows why. My heart still aches with sadness, and secret tears still flow. What it meant to love you – No one can ever know.”

Mom used to write me letters when she keeping well its one such letter, an album full of my childhood pics which was also the last gift from her after which she was totally bed ridden, that’s one last pic of bhaiya mom and me in one frame.

I love you mom, my life without you shall always be incomplete. I hope you are doing awesome up there and have made friends quickly like you always do. Dad misses you the most. Bhaiya was always close to you and he misses you every single day. And for me, no one can understand the mother-daughter relation ever so you know how much i miss u. We all do like crazily miss you every day of our life. There is never a time when your friends don’t talk about you without a tear in their eyes. Life would have been so much better if you had stayed a little longer! Love u. Muah!!! ❤