My Little Habit with Mom's Tears

Mom didn’t cry yesterday, nor she lowered her face and rubbed her forehead with palm in a vain way to stop tears. I touched her feet and she kissed me. I told her goodbye and requested to have food in time, to exercise a little and to walk in morning or evening. She nodded, and she repeated everything to me. It was our thing. A very old ritual. I nodded, and I was waiting for that moment when she’d cry or hide her tears. Back days, I begged her innumerable times to stop that embarrassing thing, and that I wasn’t going anywhere dangerous or something and I’d call her every day. She didn’t stop. She told that she tried but couldn’t. But today she was smiling, while waiving me goodbye. She was SMILING!

Was I disappointed? Was my importance to her fading? Did she stop missing me? Or, was I uncomfortable for being in a total new thing? While waiting at lounge in airport for a delayed flight, I couldn’t stop from thinking.

It started in ancient period. I was a shy kid at the verge of being asocial. Hardly few persons, outside my family and close relatives knew my existence. My world was on the lone roof, abandoned mezzanine floor, my study table and school. Sometime everyone in my house forgot my presence, only mom didn’t. She knew me. She knew when I was hungry and needed food. She knew where I used to sit and walk like a ghost. She used to locate me and comfort me, when I used to cry desolately after reading a sad book. And when I was sent to hostel, she cried inconsolably. After that I never stayed at my home for more than three days at a stretch. Never. And with my continuation of small weekend or holiday trips, she though stopped crying loud, but her eyes were full of tears every time during my departure, no matter what.

Now I know, she missed that ghost. Every second, even when she was busy with her chores, or her small afternoon siesta, she remembered that ghost. When nobody was in home, she knew somebody was there, somewhere in that large house, who’d answer her if she called. And with time, she lost that ghost.

My father rebuked her, and complained that she wanted to keep me home-bound and lazy or whatever; my siblings joked, that I’d never be an adult to her and my wife laughed in shock. She even couldn’t imagine that.

Gradually it became a habit to me. I disliked it, but somehow expected it to happen. It was her way of missing me, missing that ghost or saying goodbye. But what did happen yesterday? Why didn’t she cry? My sister and brother stood beside her, and my niece was on her lap. Before my father kick-started his bike, she kissed me again, but with that smile. When the bike started and I rode as pillion, she waved me. A perfectly natural wave. Perfect but weird for me.

No. I’ll not accept that she didn’t miss me yesterday. Maybe she was content with me. Maybe this time she got what she wanted. Conversation. Time. Priority. Maybe tears found her really happy and smiling, and so that they went back.

Maybe this is the trick. Next time I will spend more time with her, so that she doesn’t need to use tears to miss me. Maybe she’ll wave me goodbye with that most beautiful smile in entire universe.