#madeofgreat

Written for the Tata Motors contest on IndiBlogger. 

There is this woman.

She is intelligent AND beautiful. She is sensible BUT does not take herself too seriously. It is very easy to make her laugh. She is loyal and will do anything for her family. She loves easily, trusts even more quickly. She bruises quietly and heals quickly. She is the foundation that a family stands on. Without her, we are all just a pack of cards waiting to fall apart.

Her heart has been trodden on one time too many. After a quietly abusive marriage to worthless garbage, dependence of the worst sort, and the desperate helplessness that comes with the dependence, she walks on, still strong, she goes forward, she makes sure we have the best opportunities she can give us, she is still the pillar that everyone collectively leans on.

Her insides writhe with a mother’s guilt; she beats herself up every day quietly because she thinks, in the absence of a father, she is giving us only half the life that we deserve. Little does she know that our lives start and end with her. While all other sentences will end in a period at some point, she is the only run-on sentence in the book of our lives that will last forever.

I remember long hours of studying together for the UN Assembly exam, the distinction I got had my name on it but all the work, she did. I remember exam times during which we finished our third revision of the portions and played a game of Jenga with broken glass bangles. I remember how much crap I gave her as a teen but one year away from her taught me that she is everything I have and she is all I need. I remember finding out that she had given instructions to the boyfriend and the best friend to make me so happy that I’d not miss her, she was more concerned about my happiness than the fact that she was travelling so far alone from home all by herself for the first ever time.

I’m so jealous of her: wherever she goes, she gains a fan following. People like her so much, they get attached to her and want her for themselves. I want to scream at her and say GET LOST, she is MINE. Her students (she is an English teacher) love her so much that they study and get great marks just to make her happy.

She can wiggle around to pop music to make us laugh, teach us to read and write, and ensure that we want more than just the stars for ourselves. Her heart breaks more than ours, when we fail at something but she has never ever left our sides, brushing failure off and teaching us to stand up and try again.

She supports every last one of my decisions (and also helps me picks up the pieces when everything comes tumbling down) and is the one person I can speak my mind to – while mum believes that it is because I am sensible person, I believe that I may be an okay person because she raised me right. Her fifteen-year-old son goes to her for comfort because, for him, there is no one better than his mum. Her little-est one, a bratty teen if there ever was one, rants and raves at her but at the end of the day, the only person she wants around is her mummy.

You should see the way she plays sports; with one sprained leg and one cramped one, she beat the living daylights out of us, less than half her age, at badminton, with no practice whatsoever. She swings the bat and you will know for sure that the ball has gone far past a sixer. If she had not gotten stuck in the most unnecessary of marriages, she would have most definitely gone places. Natural talent does not diminish over time or with age.

Fifteen minutes in the kitchen and this woman has dinner ready – twenty rotis and one sabzi. This is apart from prep for the next morning. Her room and her clothes are always in pristine condition. If only even one of us took after her. If only I could manage this ONE day of the week.

She taught us how to live, how to be safe, how to protect ourselves. She taught us good from bad. And how one should always forgive. She taught us that having faith can get us through the toughest times. And she also has ingrained in us the ability to always, always see the silver lining.
And she taught us all this by example.

After all the crap that life has shoved her way, she still walks around happy with who she is. After more than two decades of unhappiness, she smiles, she laughs, and she makes people around her happy. She believes in being good. She believes in herself.

As a grown woman going through a similar life, I appreciate all her sacrifices and the little things about her that make her amazing so much more than I did as a child. I shrug out of my own problems because they seem so insignificant in front of the ones she has.

Ties of love come with being related by blood. But to inspire a person through all stages of her/ his life, to make them want to be better, to do better, takes a special kind of person, inspiration of the most real kind.

She is the coolest mother out there.
She is the mother that everyone wanted, but only we got.

She is definitely, definitely #madeofgreat