WARM SHADES

Ma 

" You come, I'm just waiting for you." The words hammer these days in my mind, not because of her helplessness to see me next to her but because distance has distanced us enough to even let me go and hug my ailing mother and say consoling words of warmth to remove her insecurity where she thinks that every one would leave her because she is on bed, ailing and losing her memory, mixing words and moving in past and present to and fro.

 Her deteriorated abstract thinking and disorientation to time and space has given her, her childhood stage back. The stage of seeking everyone's attention, obstinacy, weird communication and blabbering. Her all sacrifice as a wife, mother and even other relation has all lost its value. All that is important is her present state-Fearsome, insecure and chaotic. Is this what for we spend our life dedicating and committing to our family, profession and social circle? 

She is lucky to have her kids tightly  clung to her in spite of distance, professional demands and family requirements. Her one painful cry is immediately reacted to with soft words and at times with angry words just like with a small child any elder behaves on his in genuine demands or stubborn behavior. My heart cries to see my tree whose shade I am, withering and drying.

Ma who sacrificed all through her life to see her kids rise and grow from all point of views, still is sacrificing her desire to see her daughter staying miles and miles away and sacrificing her wish to walk to places, sacrificing her slumber over some unknown fear, her beauty for wrinkles, her sanity for ambiguity and her communication for faded and bygone unreachable memories. Alas! her luck for unlucky situation in which shes now...Dementia.

 All around the globe there might be innumerable daughters and sons who might relate this situation as theirs. The pain is same. The tears are same-Saline and transparent, feelings are same-very abstruse and inexpiable, situation is same-clueless and out of reach to handle and yet very different in intensity and control. The very word " Ma" takes all pain away and wipes all tears and controls all uncontrollable and unreachable situations and feelings, even if she herself is declining in managing all these. That's the strength of the word "Ma" which shades us from this storm.

"Ma" is the complete cosmos in itself. "Ma" is the essence of our existence and survival." Ma" is one religion in all religions. " Ma" is one word of infinite words.

'Ma" is only love amongst all hate and " Ma" is the only creator among destroyers. Ma is just Ma-The creator of our little world. 

Sangeeta Sharma