Summer Musings

It’s summer again, and I take my little girl’s hand and walk with a spring in my step bidding goodbye to my husband at the airport. Come summer and it’s time to take a break and go ‘home’. The first place that comes to me when I mention ‘home’ is my parents’ ‘home’ where I grew up. Even years after moving away, getting married, setting up my own place, having a child, I continue to refer to my parents’ home as my home.

It came so naturally and so unconsciously to me, that I never gave it a second thought…until, that ‘revelation’ came to me, when my 8 year old daughter pointed it out. As I was packing clothes for the holiday, she asked me where we were going, and I had replied “We are going home” and she says, “But we are already at home, why are you packing?” That made me sit up and realize that I always thought of my parents’ home as my home too.

I know it is one place where I can plonk myself on the bed and order my mother to make me something hot and appetizing, it’s a place I can throw tantrums and not feel remorseful….it’s a place that makes me feel carefree and child-like again.

I can recount all the times when I went back and told my mother I was there to take a break…I would expect her to pamper me and serve me, do my bidding…all in all just ‘let me be’ and behave the way I wanted to. I knew I wouldn’t be resented for it, or held responsible for my churlish ways or obnoxious behavior.

What was so special there? I wonder now, maybe it’s my mother’s unconditional love, which lets me be, giggly, childish, angry, bitter, frustrated, ….I know even if I shout at her in a rage, she knows that I am only letting out my helplessness. After a few minutes she would came back to me and hug me and I know all will be well, again….

With the maturity of age now graying my temples, I wonder, where did my mother look for that comfort…? I am sure we all gave her enough troubles for her to want to take a break… but she never took one, she was always there with us…every step of the way.

I wonder if I can ever thank her enough or even do something in return for all that she has done for me. I know it’s not possible to repay a love so unconditional and so giving… I now look at my daughter and realize that the only way I can do that is by passing that love on to her. By being there for her when she needs me, when she wants to use me as the sounding board, offering words only when she needs them, offering solace and comfort when she wants those..I now know how I can in a small way, pass on that love to my daughter and hope that one day she too shall realize the power of being a mother.