I’ll love you forever...

I wake up as she calls out my name loud enough for our neighbors to hear.

She opens the curtain letting in all the sunlight at once flooding my room with bright sun rays, but nothing brighter than that gleam in her eyes. She pulls off my favorite blue blanket that I wrap around me like a tiny caterpillar and I open my eyes to see her face the first thing in the morning.

Glistening eyes, perfect cheekbones, soft skin, straight black braided hair, sharp nose, and slender hands. She holds my hand and delicately passes a hot cup of tea.

I smile. She smiles.

On some days I say ‘thanks’ and whenever I say it, she makes this weird yet cute face I can’t stop smiling at. I guess I partly say thanks not just to convey my gratitude but to see that laugh. And I look at her, memorizing the details of her face, good enough to play it against the dark background of my eyes as I close my eyelids every time that I think of her.

I do my best at school. I paint, sing, dance, play sports and study well too. She takes me to the first-ever drawing competition I took part in and she cheers the loudest from the front row when my name announces as second place. She surprises me at school on the day of my athletics finals. The race is about to begin and I couldn’t take my eyes off her happy face with a tiny metal lunch box in her hand. I start last but I reach first on the finish line.

She stands up and applauds. She’s always by my side.

Sometimes I’m receiving a shiny trophy and sometimes I’m outside the principal’s office staring at the ground with heavy eyes and a sad face.

I grow up, she grows older.

I leave for college and she stays back rooted to her home and work. I tell her all about my teachers, my best friends, the extra oil in hostel food, how I wash my clothes only once a week, how I’m totally unprepared for an exam a night before it, how nervous I’m on the last round of my interview sitting outside the college’s placement cell on the 8th floor of a building, 287 kilometers apart from her. She calms down all the storms in my head with her soothing voice which makes me want to believe more in myself.

I make through. She prays and says her thanks to the lucky stars.

It’s my first day at my first job. I’m at the front gate of a big building and I see my friends taking blessings from their parents before going in. I can almost feel an empty space, a void that can only be filled by her presence. I see a notification on my phone.

I open it and it says “Best of luck on your first day, I know you’ll do amazing at work and make good friends (you can start by sharing your lunch :p), Lots of love”. I smile as I punch my card filled with confidence and a lunch box packed warm in my bag with homemade parathas and pickles.

I pay my own bills and do my own laundry. On a call, I tell her how she still haunts me. How the other day I went back up on the terrace to reverse the clothes I’d hung out to dry in the sun as she’d always asked me to do so at home which protected the clothes from fading quick. How I wash all the dishes before going to bed and make my bed the first thing after getting up in the morning.
How her absence has not changed her ghostly bossy presence no matter where I go.

I’m home for the holidays and it’s my birthday. For someone who sleeps at 9 PM, she struggles to keep herself awake until 12. She dozes off around 11 PM and walks into my room at 12.15 AM with sleepy eyes, and messy hair, she kisses me on the forehead, a rather huge one that I’ve inherited from her and the one she has from my grandmother.

‘I’m so sorry I missed wishing you first, but happy birthday love’ she says. Of all the wishes, I know this one would be true forever without a doubt.

And then, with butterflies in my stomach, I fall in love and tell her all about it. I tell her how it’s still the second-best thing and that my love for her would always be my first. She tells me how all things are bound to change with time, how difficult some may seem but how essential they are to live. She does not exercise heavily anymore but instead, we go on long walks and I pluck flowers for her sometimes and we watch the stars together from our little terrace. She complains about how her back hurts every time she bends while gardening.
She slowly gets things done from me saying she’s too tired and with the cutest voice I could never say no to even if I wished to. I make her masala chai in the evenings and we have it watching the evening rains.

It’s just us, the splattering sound of the rain, the fresh smell of wet soil, a hot cup of chai, cool winds brushing past her hair playing with those strands on her forehead. Some white, some grey, some black.

As I take the empty cup from her hands I notice the difference in our hands. How mine has grown and how hers have wrinkled. She says that when I was born and when she held me for the first time, my entire head fit perfectly in her left palm.

Now that she has all the free time in the world after retiring, she can always be found doing anything that she loves. Mostly with a book in her hand, she sits on the sofa right by the garden, she wears large round spectacles that she wears on the tip of her nose making her look like a strict Math teacher at a convent school.
She wears baggy clothes and warm socks. Smells like soap. Sometimes she forgets to take her medicines on time and I lecture her on the same. She doesn’t lecture me back this time as she earlier used to. Sometimes I feel like we’ve exchanged roles. That I’ve become more like her- Strong, independent, kind and busy. And she’s clumsy, forgetful, lazy, and free.

We’re on the terrace on a summer night. She takes more time to climb the stairs now and she places her left hand on my shoulder for support. I take 2 chairs to the terrace.
‘Oh I’m not that old already, I can watch the stars standing up for half an hour if I want to’ she says. ‘Well then, I’m tired and I’ve brought these for myself actually’ I say. Both of us know that it’s not true but, we still do not wish to lose the playful energy and the spirit of youth and accept the fact that the moment we have now is not forever.
She may grow older but, I don’t think she’ll ever lose that inner kid of hers- Innocent, generous, easily forgiving, a tad mischievous, and filled with pure love.

I wake up as she calls out my name slowly.

I open my eyes and see her face the first thing in the morning. Grey hair and wrinkled skin. Everything has changed but not her beauty. She’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

She holds my hand and delicately passes a hot cup of tea. I smile and say ‘thanks’. She makes the cutest weird face and then gives the biggest smile.
I’ll love you forever, mom.