Ma: The Lovable Stoic

MA: THE LOVABLE STOIC
(Fiction)

A few years prior to her death, I visited Ma’s house in Bombay, where I grew up, the youngest of her twelve children.

During my visit, after dinner my mother and I would sit in the front verandah. We talked about life, reminisced old days and I sought her advice. She listened to my troubles with consoling attention. Never judging, advising or criticizing. After I poured out my frustrations, she would quietly hug me and suggest something helpful that would balm my heart.

On one evening under the moonlit sky as we sipped sweet Kashmiri chai I wanted to ask Ma–did she feel lonely–the question I had on mind since the day I had arrived. Under grief she was always stoic.

A year ago our father, whom the family loved and revered, had passed away. Ma was melancholy, but did not seem lonely. I thought I would be if my partner of fifty years passed away. We sat on bamboo stools, sipping tea. A steaming teapot was cooling on a table beside her.

“Moonlit nights remind me of your father–I feel connected to him,” Ma said before I could ask my question. She looked more petite than her 5’ 1” frame. Her grey hair was tied up in a chignon. Her crisp starched sari neatly wrapped, its pallu falling gracefully behind her left shoulder. In her early-seventies, her ivory smooth skin had hardly any wrinkles. Twin moons twinkled in her eyes.

“Ma, don’t you feel lonely?” I finally asked.

“For the first few months, child, I was in a daze. Then an emptiness overcame me. I did not shrug it. In time, it dissolved by itself. I paced through the memories we had made together and noticed that the reflections of my memories of him rippled through you, through all our children and grandchildren.” Her voice seemed to come from deep within. Her eyes gleamed as if from an inner effulgence.

“How did that help?” I continued.

“I had not thought of our children that way before.” She seemed to come alive. “The feeling that we continue to live through our children, gave me strength.”

Her answer relieved me of the twinge I had felt at her being alone. I asked, “What do you think happens when we die?”

“I don’t know. But since your father’s death I have done a lot of thinking. I have come to realize that death is to life what night is to day; one has no reality without the other. We must not focus on the fact that we die, but on the fact that we live… how we choose to live. The secret is in living well, each day living well. Because the way we live determines the way we die.”

Moonlight reflected on Ma’s gentle face bestowing it with divine grace. I put my head in her bosom and let her baby me.

Since that blessed evening, when I think of my mother a sense of calm overcomes me, the way it did on that moonlit night when I lay in Ma’s bosom like a chick under her mother’s protective wings–warm and sheltered forever.