As I look into my mother’s withered eyes, I see pain. More than physical pain, it is the agony borne out of the fact that she has been reduced to a shadow of her once vibrant self. My mother met with a car accident in the recent past which rendered her seriously debilitated. The regret of not having been by her side the first week after her accident, when she was fighting for dear life, haunts me to this day. If only I had known, if only I had been there with my family praying hard for her to get well…
She is far from her normal self these days. Struggling hard to hold a pen in her hand, the aftermath of a paralysed right hand, she moans in pain even to carry out the smallest of activities. I look into her eyes deeply, only to be met with more pain. For no fault of hers, she suffers excruciating pain day and night, which invariably brings a lump in my throat. I try hard to stop my burning eyes from tearing up but in vain. If only I had spent more time with her, if only I had told her how much I loved her, if only I could bring back her old self…
Albeit regretting for my shortcomings, I realise that this is my second chance to show her my love. I help her with her physiotherapy, goading and encouraging her to bend and flex her muscles-as painful as it may be, so as to gradually reduce the effect of her paralysis. In my mother’s absence, the responsibility of running the household falls on my unexperienced dad’s hands, and he tries his best to cope with the pressures of day to day life. I pine for my mother to return back to her old self, and to hold a ladle and prepare her amazing sambar. But hopefully, the day will not be far off. With the advent of technology, rehabilitation for patients with spinal injury has grown by leaps and bounds and robotic therapy is the newest rehab mechanism. It has a robotic arm that ensures patients carry out complex manoeuvring that may otherwise be overlooked in traditional physiotherapy.
If there is one lesson that I’ve learnt from this experience, it would be that I had taken my mother for granted. I knew that she loved me, but I never took the effort to acknowledge it. In this constantly moving world, we run around trying to be the best and the brightest but are we overlooking the things that really matter? A mother’s love is unparalleled, priceless and available in abundance. So don’t wait for a wake-up call to make you realise that you haven’t thanked your mother enough. Be it a good day or a bad day, a small thank you to your mother will suffice to make her day.
