My great Mom

My first hero is definitely my mom.

When my father died, I was two years old and don’t even have a memory of him. I was the last one and had one brother and three sisters above me. The only earning member was the eldest sister and since the engagement for her marriage was over before my father died, the marriage had to happen. This meant that no support can be expected from her after it. Besides the marriage expenses took away the meagre savings mom had.

As all the rest of us had to be educated, mom literally had to do more things at a time, almost like a circus gymnastic. Her education was so little and so finding a properly paying job was not possible. In spite of it, she managed to become an assistant nurse, while in the rest of the time, she made cookies for sales to make some extra money to meet our food costs. And then she had to cook for us too. She had to depend on free education for us and so she got us into such schools. And some time she had to admit me and another sister in orphanage, though we are only partial orphan. But she would promptly pay a visit every week, bring some cookies and clean our hair.

But whenever it was possible to take us back, she immediately did it. She knew that it was important for the girl children to be with mom to enjoy the support and encouragement. She managed to get a job for my brother immediately after school final as a lower worker in the electricity board and encouraged him to continue his study on part time. He ended up as engineer.

My sisters and brothers are all married and well settled. When I decided to choose my own husband she was a little uncertain in the beginning as it was a cross caste marriage, but soon pulled herself together and approved it. She in fact came and stayed with us in the last days, though culturally it was very difficult for her, being born in an orthodox Brahmin family, since my husband is a Christian by birth.

Two years ago, she died at a very good age of 93. Her sight was good enough until six months before her death and she would read whatever she can grab. She was hard of hearing towards the end, but that did not prevent her from continuing to be talkative with relatives and whoever came home. She would remember everyone and would ask about children, mentioning by name, thus surprising the visitors.