Grief

I was in my final year of college when I received a call from home. My mother had been admitted to the hospital for treatment, and I was asked to come home and stay by her side. So, I took leave from college and went home.

As far as I knew, my mother had some health issues related to calcium and thyroid deficiency. She was always taking medication. Since I was the fifth and youngest child in the family, I had never really been given much explanation about her condition. My mother had also undergone an operation once before. At that time, I was only five years old.

While she was undergoing treatment in the hospital, I began noticing changes in her. But I did not understand what they meant. After I returned to my hostel, I slowly began to realise how much she had changed.

My mother used to call me at least three times a day. But now her memory had deteriorated severely. She could no longer make a phone call on her own or even remember the numbers she needed to press. Everything would disappear from her memory within moments. She would talk about all sorts of things. Later, we were told that she had Parkinson’s disease.

After that, I struggled deeply to understand and accept the changes that were happening to my mother. I lived with her in that condition for almost three and a half years. By then, I had also received an appointment and started working.

Those years were a struggle. On many nights, my mother would not sleep. She would talk about things that made no sense. Those were part of the nature of her illness.

I mention all this not only because I lost my mother during those three years, but because I learned so much from watching her live through her illness and from being by her side.

As the youngest child in the family, I may not have been everyone’s favourite, but I had always been my mother’s little one. I had never, even for a moment, imagined that one day I would have to look after my mother as though she were a child.

Her condition placed an enormous responsibility on my shoulders. At first, I was overwhelmed and lost. But slowly, my heart learned to accept it. Those circumstances taught me, again and again, that in the hardest moments of life, we are often the only ones who can truly hold ourselves together.

What I longed for most during those days was something very simple.

I wished I could share my happiness with her during the important moments of my life. I wished I could tell her about my worries and wounds and find comfort in her words.

If my mother had still been the way she used to be, how much happiness we could have shared. I could have told her about my examination results, my achievements, and the day I received my job appointment. I could have shared so many milestones with her.

Even when I got married, she could not truly understand it through her own emotions. She would listen when I told her, but then she would forget.

Throughout those three years, I struggled with this longing many times.

But eventually, I realised one thing:

Life can change in ways we never expect.

I used to cry very easily. But even my tears became fewer.

I was the one who was beside my mother when she was taking her final breaths. When she became permanently silent, I called out to her again and again.

Until three years earlier, I had been able to speak to her normally, openly, from my heart. But when I realised that she would never again speak to me as the mother I had always known, something inside me went numb.

My mother’s illness and her loss taught me countless lessons—not only to me, but to so many people around us.

At one point, I even left my job. Many people criticised me for that decision. Looking after my mother while also going to work had become an enormous emotional struggle. There were many days when I felt guilty in both places—at home and at work.

But none of the people who criticised me had ever shared my responsibilities or carried even a part of the emotional burden I was carrying.

After coming through all of that, I would say that when I was carrying my son in this distant land, it was the experience of my mother’s illness and loss, and those days of my own childhood that had slowly faded away, that prepared and strengthened my heart.

But those experiences alone were not enough. We also need an intimate, soul-deep relationship to walk through life with us.

The gift my prayers from all those years brought me was my husband.

There are hardly any women who go through pregnancy without longing for their mother. And that longing is real.

But I went through it with my husband, even though we were far away from everyone and everything familiar.

My son was born during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. My husband was able to stay with me only until the birth. After that, I had to manage three days alone in the hospital ward.

Here, caesarean sections are not routinely performed; they are done only in emergencies. And, quite unexpectedly, I found myself in exactly such an emergency.

“Will I be able to handle this on my own?” I wondered.

Sometimes, I would think, If only I had my mother with me…

But whenever that thought came, my own mind would gently tap me on the head and remind me:

“Leave the past behind. Come back to the present.”

The strength that carried me through everything came from the losses I had already survived.

Sometimes old memories return.

Memories of my mother saying, “Give her only small tasks. she’s still a little girl.”

And I would wonder:

“Is that really me now?

Where did I find all this strength?”

I suppose that is life.

Everything passes.

This too shall pass.