meditations.............(xii) Of My Mother

To be honest I have very faint memories now of my mother - a long time has slipped away since she's been gone, new beings have come in existence, new lives have been lived, some have ended - and her face, her smile, her voice, her presence though stamped on my mind's eye is mottled and patchy.

She hasn't been there, and in that place a vacuous, abysmal emptiness has reigned supreme. When significant people go away, they leave their place in tact in our scheme of things exactly as a favorite chair or a sofa that now stands empty. And, we the living, the left-behind, the relegated debris just has to somehow fill up that empty staring pocket of darkness with one thing or another, lest it sucks us in its whirling infinite depths.

How do I love her? Let me count the ways.

I love her now as I loved her then, with the love of a child, that wants love for herself, wants to be comforted, wants a safety shield around it.

I loved her as a child then, now I love her as a woman, as a mother who knows how hard and difficult its is to be a mother.

I love her for the life she led, and now through the maze of my own life, I, in a way like never before come close to understanding her tribulations, her wants, her wishes, her dreams, her fears! so much like my own, so much of my life has metamorphosed into so much of what was hers! Alas, I feel at times that I am in a strange twist of twisted fate reliving her life only with a difference, albeit a small one, but its there none the less. Where she was confined in her actions and reactions I have taken a few bold steps ahead, where she was restrained and held back I have inched forward. And, where her heart bled to death, I have learned to live!

I love her for she made me show patience and resilience, I don't know if I have learnt much from it yet, still the example is there in front of me.

I love her for I believe she is beside me, perhaps a faded, misty version of her but all there, with her aura of benevolence and giving.

I love her through my own child, because I see her in him.

And, I love her because I love her.