She probably remembers the first time you said, “Yes.”
She was full of hopes and dreams of a new life. Much like all the young girls her age on the cusp of marriage. Her thoughts would have never stayed with her reality. She thought of you. Only you. Your voice brimming with all the youthfulness of spring. That must have been the only sound she heard in the midst of all the hubbub of the marriage arrangements.
And then the marriage. The three knots. You were physically, spiritually, and emotionally hers. And she became yours.
From that day you came into her life… And until the day you took leave from her, from all of us. She stayed yours. She will be.
Now I see her smiling. But not the same as the ones she had when you were there. She lets only a little emotion out but keeps the rest like a secret. The unsaid words reserved for her lonely moments when all the residents of the house leave for our worldly duties.
The kitchen reminds her of all the meals she made for you. In the steam that blows from the pan. The meshes of cuts on her coarse hands. The fragrance of the spices. Everything would remind her of the fact that she is making the meals for one less person. The person with whom she even made some.
She prays every day. It takes her back to the days of weeping at God’s feet in the vain hope of a miracle. All the days you were moving back and forth to the hospital and home. She sat in front of the Gods, wanting to suffer the same as you. Wanting to ease all your wounds, find you peace, and keep you happy. She was so desperate. Reciting the holy lines everyday as if your health depended on this. She was facing her own battles and fighting it with the innocence of a little girl trying to save what matters to her the most.
Her prayers were indeed answered but not in the way she wanted. Not at all in the way we all wanted.
You left her hands. The one you took two and a half decades ago. You promised a happy home in the distance but wandered off the path before you reached there. She stands alone halfway down that road. Looking back at her footprints beside yours. She traverses into the depths of the shared past to take back with her all your memories. She wants to hold it dearly against her beating heart—the one you made beat fast at the first sight of you. She knows that memories are the only ones that could make her walk the rest of the way, albeit with a weaker and a slower pace.
She shrugged off all her dreams when you said, ‘Yes!’ Why? She put your wishes first and even took it on her, doing anything in her power to make it happen. We never asked what she yearned for. She never asks anything. She never thinks for herself. Even now, after a month of bidding farewell to you, all she ever wants is for us to make you proud. She asks us to wear your name with pride and protect the goodwill you have earned in society. That’s all she ever thinks about.
I still don’t know what she talks to you during the lonely hours she spends in that empty house you built. Does she go about her chores to keep her mind away from the reality where you are not there? Does she look at your framed photograph on the wall and stare at you with the stillness of an undisturbed pond? Does she speak about the brunt of the loss and let herself drown in tears hoping for the touch of your hands on her shoulders?
We could never know. That would always be a private moment between you and her.
She thinks you will occasionally make your presence known. She yearns for it. Maybe in the caress of the breeze as she opens the window to let in the morning air. Or in the involuntary dance of my face muscles which reminds her of the way you smile. Or even in the semblance of your voice in one of her dreams.
While she tries hard to keep you alive in thoughts, her religion keeps shoving customs at her and vehemently declares you are not here anymore. It made her undo the three knots that bind both of you. It made her remove the golusu, the anklets around her legs that chirp like an early morning bird as she walks. Now, her ankles are bare. Devoid of beauty. The emptiness that fills with the absence of your existence.
Yet she puts on a brave face for us. She doesn’t hate the religion for making her this way. She doesn’t disregard her fate. She accepts everything with the same heart she accepted you into her life. She might not smile the same way but would smile nevertheless. The wound you left behind would not close all the way. Yet she would find peace that it does not bleed anymore.
She would cook the same meals. Say the same prayers. And cry a few tears. But her sight is still on the happy home in the distance. Lonely road it is, yet she walks on.
After all, she is still yours, Dad.
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