Remembering Mom

(This was on my previous blog. Dated 22nd October,2008...with a little editing. There was suppose to be a Part 2, but it never came to completion)

Remembering Mom is a celebration of my mother’s life. I hope that people who have lost their loved and dear ones can relate to this and may find that in the course of time, it is well, and though many things have changed, their lives and memories should always be cherished.

It took a lot of time for this one. It’s something on a very deep and personal note so just bear with me. It was hard to write such a thing, especially with all the graphics and images that came back. I saw my mother for just eighteen years, but the memory remains. And all the times we had had been great. Though the years have eroded so many, those special moments can never be lost. 2005 was a tragic year for our family. We had to say our goodbyes to a loving mother, a great wife to her husband and a great friend to many.

I still remember, when I was in my 3rd Standard, fiddling around my dad’s typewriter. One letter at a time, I would manage to type out a whole paragraph. It would take quite a while as you can imagine. Then I started to write poems, a short story or anything that came to mind. One day my mom saw one of the poems. I still remember - “Stars” was the title I gave to it. She read it and must have liked it - she went to the headmistress of a school that I was in at the time and showed it to her. Later that evening, my mom told me about it. Then she handed me back a corrected copy of the poem - with red ink. She said it was a nice poem but I needed to improve on it. Then, she kept it safely. I still read it every chance I get.

My mom loved flowers. The entire house looked like a botanical garden with all the different varieties of plants and flowers around. A greenhouse at the front and at the back terraces of plants, flowers that when they blossomed it had many people in awe. Every morning before brunch she would be tending to her precious flowers. And my dad would tell her to stop or else they would be late for work. But she always took her own sweet time. And I was sure that every morning before I leave for school, I could always find her in the garden, tending her precious flowers. She always looked happy being with them.

Christmas’s has always been fun. Before we bought those plastic Christmas trees, my mom would pick one of her best evergreen and set it out in the living room. Then, she and I would start to decorate it. Bells here, Santa there, stars, here, stockings there-it was all so fun. Then we’d finish it off with a rather big Santa, sitting on the very top of the tree. But I wasn’t done yet. I’d take some cotton wool, spread it out on the base, so that it would look like snow and pose my collection of GI Joe’s there. Even the Cobra’s and the GI’s didn’t fight during Christmas time. Quick Kick, Scrap Iron, Flint, Baroness all enjoyed our lovely tree, sitting casually, enjoying the holidays. Sometimes she would stay up half the night making wreaths and other decors and hang them nicely at different places of the house. Then later she’d be receiving orders from people who wanted to buy wreaths she was making. I wasn’t much help though; all I was interested in was her glue gun.

I’ll never forget the night when mom played Santa. She took this huge sack and filled it up with old clothes of my brothers and me. Then we distributed it to the less fortunate in our neighborhood.
And oh yea, the Christmas I caught “Santa”. I saw mom hiding a stash of goodies and a GI Joe which I had really wanted. She tried to explain that it wasn’t for me, and that Santa would bring my gifts as usual. No mom. I already know that there is no Santa.

But then, as I entered teenage hood, I started to spend less and less time with my mom and dad. Friends became more important then home and I was starting to become a little rebellious, but not too far I guess. No major harm done. We all go through the rebellious years right? Then straight after finishing 10th, I left home for boarding school. Since then I’ve been home for, maybe, just over two months a year. It’s been five years I’ve been living outside my sweet little home town.

After Intermediate got over, I was lucky enough to join an Engg College. Meet some really great friends there. Mom and dad saw my brother, a friend of his and me off at the train station. A moment here, I always hate goodbyes. Not the short ones, but when you know you’re not going to see them for a long time. As the train pulled out I saw both my parents frantically waving goodbyes, then they started to appear smaller and smaller and then I lost them in the crowd. Little did I know that that would be the last time I saw my mom “un-bed-stricken”. Because the next time I saw her, we had to help her just so she could turn to her side.