The story of my mom.
As far as I can remember, my mom was my everything. A woman in control of my life. The one who made all the decisions for me. Of my food. Of my playtime. Of my pocket money. Of my studies. Of my everything.
It was about 21 years ago, that God first tried to take my mom from me, in the year 1994 when her kidneys failed. I was 13 then. Shy, quiet, skinny, unsure of myself. It was my sister and my dad who went through hell to save her, while protecting the little me, back then. Back then, I and my sister, realized we had to grow up a little faster than other children. From that time onwards, I remember my mom fighting for us, and us fighting for our mom. For our happiness. For her life.
Life changed when she had this operation. My sister was away to Chennai as a 16 year old girl trying to get her mom operated in an unknown city, where she knew no one. I was told by mom that my sister went through the most torrid time of her life there. We shifted out of our house in East Delhi for a temporary stay at our nanaji's house in South Delhi.
I remember the one or two years we spent at our Naana Ji's house, mostly with the family of our mamaji, Kaka Maama and Nikka Maama. This was immediately after she had her kidney transplant operation in Chennai and had back to Delhi in a serious medical condition with very low immunity levels. I remember how Nikka Mamaji dropping me and my sister during chilly winters at 5:30 am to my new bus stand in South Delhi. I remember the innumerable games and laughter riots with my cousins Gagan, Punnu and Honey Bhaiya. I remember the amazing paranthas made by Kamlesh Maasi. I remember the table tennis games played on dining tables. I remember Rupla maasi unsuccessfully trying for two years to make me eat something. I remember my mother in an isolated room we cleaned twice a day to prevent infection to her new kidney. I'll never forget those days. These memories are a bit too deep to be thrown out of my system.
I remember my father coming and visiting us every now and then. I remember moving back to a new, smaller house, in East Delhi, two years later. My father had to sell our old house because the disease was too expensive. I remember my father queuing up outside his Indian Airlines office for medical help. I remember him fighting tooth and nail with doctors and chemists to give mom an extended life. We all loved you too much, because we were scared of what life is like, without a mother.
I remember moving to Pocket 5 and how we were cheated while buying the flat. And how for many years that were to follow, my dad had to pay up penalties pending on the house that were hidden from him by the man who sold him the house.
I remember that after moving to our new house, that she never looked unwell. She was in command of her life. She had tremendous will power - being able to control her diet and take medicines by the clock to keep her clock ticking, for her children. She never missed a day of school because of her health. She had the maids doing the rounds of the house with precision. Her kids were off to school on time and doing more than okay for themselves. Our life was back to normal. She used to tell me till recently, that the only thing she prayed to God at the time was to keep her alive if her children needed her. God heard her. She saw us through out of school into our colleges. My sister was the single biggest source of strength for my mom back then, sacrificing her studies and her career for our mother.
In between my mom had multiple complex medical conditions, including surgeries for her gall bladder and for a burst appendix. The appendix burst on the day I joined my first job at ITC, Kolkata on June 1st, 2005. I wasn't even told about it by my family. They all protected me from the troublesome news so as to not distract me from my joining. How I still hate everyone for hiding that from me.
By that time, I was a man. And thankfully my sister had also found a man who had brought her out of hell and changed her life forever - Rajan.
And then in 2007, her health started to fail again. On the day I was getting transfered to Jaipur, I stopped by Delhi to show my mom to a new doctor, because the treatment from one we had consulted for 15 years wasn't suddenly working anymore.
I remember standing in the cabin of Dr. Jasuja in Apollo and being told to ask my father to wait outside as the doc wanted to discuss something in private with me. And he told me that mom's kidneys are dead. Again. And all the horrors on the past came gushing to my memories. He said that she'll have to be put under dialysis immediately. I remember my mom telling me that there's no way she's going to go on dialysis, citing nightmarish few dialysis of her earlier days. I told her to shut up and moved out of the doctors cabin and saw my father lying down on the floor. My father had had a stroke. And my mom's kidneys had failed. Both on the same day. I realized that day that it was all up to me now. By this time, mom's blessings had prepared me to be a man who can take care of her during her old age.
That's where, the company I still work for, ITC, bent backwards to allow me to take care of my parents. A year long struggle to take my father out of paralysis and my mother out of her death bed took a toll on my career. I chose a step down role in Delhi and never regretted it. Next year, dad passed away and my mom and I moved to Gurgaon. This is where she probably had the best years of her life. Rakesh joined me and took over the duties of the son at home, while I worked day and night in office. She felt unwell many times over after she was on dialysis and had to be hospitalized over two dozen times in the last 10 years of her life.
My biggest personal aim in life became that my mom should see a complete life - of her son's marriage and the pleasure of holding her grandchild. I extended her life as much as I could possibly , but somewhere I thought I went overboard in my fight with God to save her. God extended her life, but the last two years were the worst. She had to be hospitalized 8 times in the last 24 months. By the time it was 2013, I was biding time with God, wanting to put Kaku in her lap, before she says goodbye to us. I remember screaming my guts out of exhilaration the day i managed to do it. As I brought her on a wheelchair from Kolkata to Delhi, I couldn't believe that she was seeing this day. I realized that somewhere subconsciously for 20 years - I was fighting for this day. And I won. My mom carried herself out of her deathbed in 1994, with the help of my sister, my father, countless doctors and surgeons, was going to be seeing her youngest child's child. As I kept Kaku in her lap, I realized that I shall never be this happy again.
She spent the last one year as a recluse, being able to barely hear or comprehend conversations. She couldn't walk without a walker for most of her last two years. And in the last six months, was on a wheelchair completely. I remember pepping her up to keep herself going all these last few years. And for most times, she listened and pushed herself to live on.
I am not sad today that she's not with us. What I'm sad is that by the time I was ready to give her happiness, God disabled her physically and mentally from getting it. I wish to be able to get that opportunity again, when she comes back in another form, as another being, into my life again.
