My Amma!

My mom lost her mom when she was 21. She was the eldest of all three kids. My one and only uncle was in his teens, when my grandma died. She was barely 50 yrs old then. I know about her only through what my mom said about her. And there was only one photo that was left of her. She never looked like my mom. She had kidney failure and was under dialysis for years before she died. In fact she was bed ridden, even while my mom was 12. As she was the eldest, my mom often put herself in my grandma’s shoes. In fact when her mom died, it was she who signed the documents to bring grandma’s dead body to home. She used to tell that to me, always when I was a kid. But I never understood the seriousness of it. I have even told her once that “its no big deal! Anyone can sign the documents for a dead body!” I never bothered to think that it was her own mom’s dead body!

 

As my mom and her sister were unmarried at that time, our relatives and neighbours gossiped that my achachan didn’t want to get his daughters marry off, cos he wanted them to do house-chores! One day my mom heard this with her own ears!

 

Anyway after marriage, my mom preferred to stay with my granddad, cos she again thot that it was her responsibility to look after him, in my grandma’s absence. Though later it proved to be a mistake, she stuck on to it!

 

May be cos  of what she underwent, even when I was a kid she used to drill into me the feeling that she wont be there for me for long and I have to look after myself. She used to teach me, how to live, if she was dead. I was 8 yrs old, when she used to tell me this. I got so scared by this, that everyday when I returned home from school, I half-expected my mom to be dead. I was scared always! My dad used to scold my mom for making me think like this. But she was adamant that I must cope with her absence even at that age. I used to cook and wash clothes when I was 8 yrs old.

 

But the opposite happened, when I grew up. She started caring for me like a baby, when I was 22. May be to compensate for that ever-fearful childhood I had, now she cooks, cleans and even washes and folds my clothes for me. She feeds me with her own hands, when I say that I am not hungry. If I say I want curd, the next instant she goes to the near by shop and buys it for me. She buys all sort of eatables, for me if ever I express my wish for it. Those things never happened when I was a kid. I was treated like a grown-up then, and now I am treated like a baby. Even my dad says it’s ridiculous. But I feel I am having second childhood, with amma, now.