Happy Mother's Day!
A day to remember, cherish and express love and gratitude to the one person to whom each of us owe our very existence! My mother was my everything - loving caregiver, best friend, provider, mentor, guide, confidante, sounding board, punching bag, pillar of support, wiper of tears, morale booster, confidence builder, moral compass and much much more!
Some of us aren't as lucky as some others - the time I got with my mother was over before I could decide how I wanted to spend it.
This post today is not about that . This is about a mom who's alive and in good health. It's about a sixty year old mother whose adult son does not talk to her anymore.
After coming to the U.S. to do his masters, this guy was talking to his mom about once a week, like most boys do - sometimes he got busy, sometimes he forgot, and at other times, various other interests and commitments made the phone calls shorter and shorter until they completely stopped. He got married about four years ago. Many mothers tend to want to blame the daughter-in-law for flaws they see in their sons, after he's married; but want to pat themselves on their backs for their supreme parenting, for anything positive.
That happened here too. But soon, she realized that no one can control another human being to such an extent. If her son really wanted to talk to her, he would definitely do so. After many months of trying to talk to him, emailing him and messaging him, in vain, the mother feels hopeless and clueless. It is not the distance between Boston and Bengaluru, it is not the time difference, it is just that he has withdrawn, he's grown distant and cold. And she has no clue why.
I'll admit I don't know much about what exactly happened. In fact,
people closest to him don't know what the matter is, what his grievances
are. Every family has its own dynamics, its own sub plots and sub sub stories, with many many layers of emotions and feelings in between. There is nothing that she can think of, which could have scarred him and made him draw the thick curtain of silence between them. She has jogged her brain and ran marathons up and down memory lane as far and as long as she possibly could, talked to close relatives and friends - nothing really unusual has come up that could serve as a plausible reason for this.
All I know is that there is a mother in deep pain. She was the eldest of three children born in the nineteen fifties - a typical docile, understanding and sacrificing firstborn - an ideal child of the parents and true forerunner for her siblings. After marriage, she was the devoted wife and quintessential mother, toiling for the health and happiness of her family. Today, when she's sixty, one of her children has very mysteriously and unilaterally severed ties.
Try as she might,she's not able to let go and turn the other way. She's active, involves herself in a variety of charity and social service projects. But this heartache is eating her away from within. She has even unconditionally apologized for anything she might have said or done inadvertently. The normally cheerful and active woman suffered a mild heart attack recently. She has fully recovered but told her son to ' talk to me while my cognitive faculties are still functional and I am able to speak. God knows what tomorrow has in store and whether it would be too late by the time, you decide to speak with me'! My mouth locked up and tears welled in my eyes when I heard this.
There is nothing that cannot take a step in the right direction, with proper communication. As we age, we must try to let go of old grudges and hard feelings and reconnect bridges that got burnt at some point, for some reason.
One doesn't need to turn very old to realize the important things in life - a lot of people and opportunities will be gone if we wait until old age, for wisdom to set in.
And this is a mother we are talking about - not anyone else!
Family is not just a bunch of relations, it's love and forgiveness, it's letting go and embracing, it's putting your loved ones before your ego.
The clock is always ticking, whether we are doing earth shattering work or killing time on Facebook and What'sapp!
What I wouldn't give to talk to my mother for five minutes!
Please talk to your loved ones before it's too late. Not just on mother's day or some special day, but today!
