The word ‘Thank’ is not enough

I am a reflection of my mother. Who is she and what she has done for me always stays with me in my mind. This year on Mother’s Day, I would like to share a few words for my mother, those intangible thoughts and to transcend them into a ‘whole’ space.

I was the second born to my mother after her first baby who died at the age of 5 months. She had to bear the loss at the age of 20. I got to know many years later that the grannies resented the birth of a girl but to my mother I was special. I was her first living child. 

Hold on to your vision:

Her credentials do not speak much for themselves. She was married off at the age of 19 even before she could complete her 12th standard. Hence, nobody understands the value of education more than she does. She made a promise to herself that my education would never be compromised. When I turned 9, the grannies made a remark that I just had 9 more years remaining before I got married (the legal age for a girl to marry in India is 18 years). To this, my mother promptly replied that she would not marry me unless I completed my education and worked for atleast 2 years. That day I got my lesson that one must always stand up for one’s vision and dreams and it doesn’t matter if one needs to fight for them. 

As a child, I was quiet and an introvert. The only person I was close to and could speak my heart out to was her. Every day after coming back home from school and college, my first task used to be to offload everything that happened during the day passing on the minutest of observations and details. She listened to me with full interest and she knew nearly all of my classmates by their names and characteristics though she never got to meet most of them in person.

She was a friend to me. She would make me sit by her side while she ironed the laundry telling me about her own childhood stories. She never made any sort of discrimination between me and my younger brother although her own stories had instances of how she was not allowed to learn to ride a bicycle because it was a boy’s thing and how she was not allowed to playfully hang from the high window grills serving as the climbing frame to her for the concern if she became taller this way then searching a groom for her would become a difficult work.

She inculcated the values of equality, sharing and sensitivity in both of her children. For me, she is an example of how you need not be highly educated to have a progressive outlook in life. She is an inspiration that you can be your individual self, your own person with a philosophy and thought process completely distinct from the background and the upbringing you have had. 

My pillar:

When Dhruv was born, she was my infallible pillar of support with respect to taking care of him since I was still working full time and my family did not want me to continue working. When later I gave up my job to become a Stay-At-Home-Mother and once complained to her about my education getting wasted, she guided that ‘education should not be seen only as a means of securing a job it does much more than that. It broadens your horizon and gives you wings so it can never be a waste’. She showed confidence in me telling me soon I will figure out what to do with my life and here I am blogging and writing making a little mark of my own in this universe.

Mummy, I am not going to thank you for what all you have done to me and for me because I believe the 5 letters in the word ‘THANK’ would not be able to hold my deepest gratitude for you.

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