I wish I wake up one day and realize it had been a dream. A wild nightmarish movie from which you get up teary eyed, eat your popcorn and move on. I wish three years ago this day never happened! Yet when I pinch, I feel it. Feel the pain and the reality.
So I woke up that day and my dad was in his usual position, with a bible in his hand, deep in his thought. I looked over amma. She was very unlike her. Lying down on the bed. Unconscious. Her routine had always included cooking for the children and everybody else at home before we got up. And here she is lying down, not knowing that the world around her has woken up.
I went to dad and he said we have to go to Sivakasi today for she is not surviving this day! Was it some divine intervention? Or just the medical intuition? I don't know. We deliberated the pros and cons along with chithi who had just landed up from Triuchur. The pros and cons of taking her to CMC or any other place. Then decided it is wise to get going to Sivakasi.
We called the Ambulance. I along with a few younger cousins got ready in a car. I'm to reach home before the Ambulance and make things ready for her arrival. For she left sivakasi two months ago walking! And the world has not seen her in those two months. We had always maintained that she is doing well and she will come back to work, just to avoid visitors.
The hospital looked deserted. Every face said something is wrong. I asked people to not crowd and made way for the ambulance. For the first time in her life in sivakasi, her own tireless feet deserted her. She was carried in to her bed room. The family started singing. Two deep breaths. Ma, this is your house! Can you see the bed room? I said. She opened her eyes. And then closed it. Once and for all! Two more deep breaths and the body gave way to the soul.
There was a studied silence. For a few seconds nobody moved. My dad got his hand over her eyes and closed it to confirm the inevitable. Life, on my mother's earthly body is gone. That beautiful soul chose to live somewhere else.
The next day was a day of mourning for the family! And more so for the town. For the family, was hers but the town chose her. She was their adopted daughter. The wailing could be heard long and far. the poor, the downtrodden, the rich and the influential, the young and the old, the business man and the rickshaw wallah, came to bid her farewell.
The church was packed! The burial ground even more. One man shouted over her body, 'Where will we go ma, where will we, the poor go?'
A friend happened to see her photo in the wallet of an auto driver after two years. She is my role model. She is my mother, said that man! One other friend had name her daughter after her.
I wish that day had never happened. The town is never the same again. For I know that entire town called her 'amma'. But I miss her more, for only two were called 'chellam' by her and I was one of them.
So I woke up that day and my dad was in his usual position, with a bible in his hand, deep in his thought. I looked over amma. She was very unlike her. Lying down on the bed. Unconscious. Her routine had always included cooking for the children and everybody else at home before we got up. And here she is lying down, not knowing that the world around her has woken up.
I went to dad and he said we have to go to Sivakasi today for she is not surviving this day! Was it some divine intervention? Or just the medical intuition? I don't know. We deliberated the pros and cons along with chithi who had just landed up from Triuchur. The pros and cons of taking her to CMC or any other place. Then decided it is wise to get going to Sivakasi.
We called the Ambulance. I along with a few younger cousins got ready in a car. I'm to reach home before the Ambulance and make things ready for her arrival. For she left sivakasi two months ago walking! And the world has not seen her in those two months. We had always maintained that she is doing well and she will come back to work, just to avoid visitors.
The hospital looked deserted. Every face said something is wrong. I asked people to not crowd and made way for the ambulance. For the first time in her life in sivakasi, her own tireless feet deserted her. She was carried in to her bed room. The family started singing. Two deep breaths. Ma, this is your house! Can you see the bed room? I said. She opened her eyes. And then closed it. Once and for all! Two more deep breaths and the body gave way to the soul.
There was a studied silence. For a few seconds nobody moved. My dad got his hand over her eyes and closed it to confirm the inevitable. Life, on my mother's earthly body is gone. That beautiful soul chose to live somewhere else.
The next day was a day of mourning for the family! And more so for the town. For the family, was hers but the town chose her. She was their adopted daughter. The wailing could be heard long and far. the poor, the downtrodden, the rich and the influential, the young and the old, the business man and the rickshaw wallah, came to bid her farewell.
The church was packed! The burial ground even more. One man shouted over her body, 'Where will we go ma, where will we, the poor go?'
A friend happened to see her photo in the wallet of an auto driver after two years. She is my role model. She is my mother, said that man! One other friend had name her daughter after her.
I wish that day had never happened. The town is never the same again. For I know that entire town called her 'amma'. But I miss her more, for only two were called 'chellam' by her and I was one of them.
2 comments:
She is truly a legend. She lived a Christ like life. Let us serve the poor and the needy with the same smiling face and sacrifice!
I feel so moved by what you have written. How we all wish along with you that it was only a bad dream!
Why God had to take her away, when she was so active, so loving and caring... We probably will never know . Our trust is that God is good and He knows what is best. We thank God for who she was and for the way her life touched so many - her dear family and so many poor and needy who gratefully remember her in and outside Sivakasi.
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