Life doesn't wait for anyone or anything

 

My parents were quite old when I was born. My dad was 48 and my Amma was 43. I'm pretty convinced that I was the 'impossibility' that was destined to come into this world. My mother was already quite sickly as she had suffered from asthma most of her life. She looked older than the mothers of my friends and schoolmates. But, I never lacked for attention and love from her. 

She and I were a funny pair. She had a limited level of English and I had a limited level of my mother tongue, Malayalam. So, as I grew into a teenager there were several occasions where the communication was strained, especially when we didn't agree on a point. She of course saw her daughter getting more and more influenced by the modern world and I saw her warnings as severe restrictions to my freedom and fun. When we reached that level, I once declared that we suffered from a 'generation gap'. I have no idea where I found such a term but I know it made my father laugh loudly the first time I used it.

Unfortunately, when I was just 19, my mother's condition was getting worse. She did go to a doctor but she didn't like hospitals and checkups. She had convinced herself after her own mother's death in a hospital that those places were no good. So, other than the four times that she went to the hospital to give birth to her four children, she refused to set foot in there. Naturally, her difficult childhood of working in a weaving mill for sometime and surely experiencing some level of hunger may have made her system overall weaker. All I could see was that she was getting slightly less active.

But, did I really see and notice anything is what I ask? I was young. I had myself to look at in the mirror, dress up like every teenage girl, I had my preoccupations and my crazy schedules of going out every evening to boot. During this time when I was 19, my cousin who was a nurse, dropped in without warning and gave her a general check up. I'm guessing she saw some paperwork that the doctor had given my father. The only thing I remember is that she took me aside and told me that I had one more year with my mother. That she was sure that my mother would not survive the year. I remember crying listening to what she said, not too loud to not let my mother hear me crying, feeling angry because she was telling me that and feeling with fear the conviction in her voice and then looking at my mother. 

My Amma didn't look any older or different from the day before or the months and years in my eyes. She had always looked tired, always slept the whole night in her lazy chair (due to having difficulty lying down) and always suffered the climb up the stairs of the three floors of the building. But, she was still ready at 5pm having changed into a sari, waiting for my father to take her out every single day. My dad also worked a side hustle and was happy for her to just tag along from house to house as he dropped in to meet his clients. She didn't mind that he was working as it gave her time out of the house. All my life she would do that and this evening too she sat there in her pink sari probably annoyed at my cousin for eating into her outside-going-time. 

Shortly after my cousin left home, I stood there thinking that maybe I shouldn't go out that evening. Maybe I should talk to my father. Maybe my Amma needed me to help her with something. But before I could think much longer, my parents announced that they were leaving and would be back by 9pm as usual. I looked at the nice red and black dungarees I had worn, looked at my puffy eyes in the mirror and brushed my hair. I went out as usual to roam around in the colony with my friends. 

The moment had passed and life moved on.

Liked this story, read one more on my childhood here

https://lekhawrites.blogspot.com/2012/07/turn-of-events.html