Ammi

For the past five years or so, I have been wanting to write about her because I suddenly realized that I only write about  people when they are no more. Is that when I realize what they meant or does dying make people important all of a sudden? No. NO. I’ve loved them always. It is pain or perhaps fear of losing them that pushes me to write. The only kind of happiness that ever makes me write is one that is unexpected or adrenaline rushing or something of sudden excitement or something that was unforeseen.

These constants of my life, these people who make up my life make up my every mundane day are a different kind of important for me.

There is no rush, no excitement, no suddenness in the way I tie my hair every morning, or eat food, or the little quirks in my vocabulary that people my generation usually don’t know of, the abruptness, the princess-like ability to swish through life with my decisions, the realistic pain management whether it is that of heart or body, the way I say my prayers, how I kneel, how I wear the dupatta, how I like my food, how perfectly round I make rotis, how I feel it is my birth right to have double a “hissaa” of everything there is a hissaa keeping (share keeping) of, whether it’s a pack of chocolates or Daal ka halvaa or simply just rice in any form, I would always get the lion’s share and more, how I essentially crave for something sweet after each meal even if it is a spoonful of sugar, the list is endless. There’s a little bit of Ammi in all of this and more. My love for flowers and not gardening, because Abbaa was the one with a green thumb. Ammi was the one who “dealt” with the flowers (never fruit unless it was for eating).

She really is the constant in my life who never quite wavered when it came to my life decisions. Unlike anyone else in the world, she stood by me through everything. The first and the last standing supporter of each of my two divorces, “if she is not happy, that is all that matters. She is right.” Nobody else except my only sibling has given me that fortitude. Ever.

It is fear of losing her but she is still there. Breathing the air I touch, sharing the moon with me. She is still in my life. However I am writing this only as I step out of my vigorous, spirited denial. I feel guilty for perhaps losing faith in my own love for her, or her ability to live for she’s the one who engrained the resilience in me that stands to differentiate me from many around me yet I would call her for even the most mundane things like an aching wrist or split ends in my hair. All my life she has just been a gesture, a shout out, a phone call away for me and I don’t know a life without her but something inside my heart tells me that I will have to experience that as much as I hate to think of it. This past month I’ve prayed several times to give her my life and health and that I wish I could die first so I don’t have to see her go but I think that’s rather unfair for someone who has lost almost everyone in her own generation as well as a good chunk of nieces and nephews she raised. Losing her first grandchild would add to her pain and God is anything but harsh. My strength comes from someone I’ve adored since I was 11 and used to write letters to in good old letter writing days. I am so blessed to have him to love. This past week and a half I’ve called him up almost every day and bawled my head off every time he has told me to not be too hopeful. I would only feel unbelievable, sharp, piercing pain in the middle of my heart at the time but this morning when I got the call that Ammi is back in the Intensive Care Unit, instead of breaking down I took a deep breath and held my heart. I owe this strength to him and only him, trust me when I say it’s not me because as I type these words the screen blurs out and I have to stop every now and then to wipe tears so I can see again. I am not this tough, as much as I hate to admit it, I am not. There. I said it.

Here’s to celebrating the woman who (and I say it often but I really can’t say it enough) is a Rock star in the way she carried herself through life and its adversities, loved to the fullest, lived to it too, was blessed with a man who treated her like a queen till his dying day, kids who she felt free to love and hate and yet raise to be who they are today, a true feminist in many of her ways yet upholding the patriarchal traditions in ways that would itch my brain and make me cringe. If I could be half a woman as she has been, I would know I’ve lived a good life.

There is no one like you Ammi, I wish we could have you for longer and I’m sorry I couldn’t give you great grand children, a regret I will take to my grave but I gave you so much of ME, my tantrums that you handled all through childhood, my moods, my teenage outbursts, my crazy love, my traveling stories, my photography, my MANIC LIFE (:D), maybe it’ll make up for keeping you from another generation of madness.

I wish I could have given you the pleasure of seeing me happily married off and “settled” as you would say, I tried, you know I did but I also wish you would’ve known what a strong, crazy kid you have managed to raise that I really AM happy the way I am too. If you would’ve understood my content disposition, I know for a fact that you’d never ask me to consider marriage again.

However, I promise you I will give love a chance, always. Today and forever. That is what you and Abbaa taught me through your life.

A lesson I will never forget.

P.S. I will always be your seventh child. No matter what.