The A to Z challenge was inspired by Preeti's A to Z Challenge. You can read her blog here. So I wanted to end with a post similar to hers.
But fate had other plans.
I lost my father when I was 13 and on February 20th this year, I came very close to losing my mother. She had suffered a massive heart attack and was in a hospital in Surat on ventilator support. It was a long and lonely flight back home, with just the lump of terror and perplexity in my throat for company. I had made Tejas bhai - my cousin, swear on his kids lives to tell me the truth before I boarded.
Terrible thoughts of 'I should've been with her', 'How negligent a son am I?', and 'What if' kept whizzing across my mind and the lump kept getting heavier.
But in the middle of the chaos, turmoil, and guilt, as my mind was preparing myself for the worst, I was overcome with a sudden sense of gratitude. My mother had people who loved her around her when this happened. She had access to the right medical care. We didn't have to worry much about money to take care of her. I didn't have to worry about work because my organization and its people are kind and put family first and I could work from back home.
After the most unpleasant and uncertain 10 hours, at the layover I came to know that she was conscious and lucid, now with 3 stents in her arteries. The next 48 hours were still critical, but the worst was probably over.
Still anxious and tormented, the thought of seeing Missus and Beckett now crept its way to mind. In the movie 'Hook', Peter Pan has grown up and forgotten how to fly. To be able to fly again, he has to go to a happy place in his mind. This most certainly was mine.
Beckett now talks in full sentences, uses big words, asks questions like 'Tu pacho avvano che?' ('Are you going to come back?'), goes to day care with Naani, climbs the slide the wrong way up, asks me to put on my glasses when we are on video call, scribbles over paper, uses scissors (of course under Missus's watchful eyes), goes shopping and swimming, and still astounds us every now and then with what she learns and discovers and does.
Being a parent is hard work, but being a son or daughter is pretty darn difficult too. Gratitude, goodwill, and goodness of people around you go a long way in making the journey enjoyable and memorable.
