May 10, 2008

I have often celebrated Mother’s Day with all the usual lovely things that any daughter would do on this occasion. Preparing something to eat or getting a nice gift for her was all I would think of doing on this day. But for the last couple of years, much meaning and depth has come into my love and admiration for my mother.

Now that I am not that young I have come to understood why mothers are held in high esteem and why heaven lie at their feet. They truly deserve respect, admiration and acknowledgement for the years of labour they put in to raise kids. And this should come from none but from the children themselves.

Sometimes, seeing some naughty and troublesome child I ask my mother “Ammi was I like this, did I also bother you this much?” “This is how kids behave otherwise why they would not be kids,” she always replies.

When we grow up and become independent, maybe we don’t need our parents in that capacity as we do when we are young. But surely we want them to be with us as their presence gives us emotional strength and they offer us the comfort, which no other person in the world can give. I remember I once met a middle aged person who was quite well settled in life. He spoke to me about his ailing mother with sensitivity and expressed how much his mother meant to him. He told me when he leaves for the office daily, the thought that his mother would be praying for his safety was invaluable. But he feared if anything happened to his mother he would lose his mother’s prayers.

Like all mothers my mother was always there for us when we were small and highly dependent on her for all our needs. And in that process she literally put herself behind and ignored her own needs. She wanted to be a teacher and even managed to pick up a job, but gave up her job, her dreams and aspirations to look after us.

And now when she has aged, and we all have grown up, it is time to pay her back with the same level of love and affection. She has reached that stage, which Shakespeare compared to the second childhood.

It is for our own good if we do all the nice things for our mothers (which they truly deserve) as many times as we can. On Mother’s Day we must renew our pledge to ourselves that we should continue to love our mothers without faltering at any day of the year. I have made it a point to end my day with a prayer for my parents. And I know no matter how far I would be from my mother, she too would remember me in her prayers.