Happy mother's day....

I was at the Nehru planetarium with my son (trying to be a good mom in my own eyes).

And then one mom with her two teenage daughters sits next to me. She is in her fifties, a little heavy for her height and seems like she has pain in both her knees. She is all sweaty and because the parapet on which we are sitting was too low, she could not balance and sat with a big thud. I saw her and smiled.(non-verbally we communicated that its ok and it is fine....)

Then came her first daughter who loved her to the core and started shouting.
“Is this the way you sit?
What if you had fallen down?
Don’t you know how to take care and sit slowly?”
And then before the mom could answer, the second daughter came in and scolded her even more loudly –
Is this how you sit?
She loves her mom immensely but does not know how to express the love and this time it is mixed with worry.

Believe me, the combination of love and worry is too dangerous. She goes on and on and on. And their mom goes deeper and deeper into the trenches of shame and guilt.

And then I am interrupted by my son because the show is about to start and we need to get inside the planetarium.

I was also feeling sad because, on many occasions, I have felt that I have more wisdom than my mom (who is an epitome of patience) and insulted her (unknowingly) because I want to care for her.

Somewhere today I realized that my angry words and tone do not convey my love and care for my mom.
Mom will always forgive me for all my stupid behaviors because she loves me more than I do.

And today these two teenage daughters have made me realize how deadly the combination of worry and love is.

And so today I decide to

Express love to my mom by UNDERSTANDING HER...
Express love to my mom by ALLOWING HER to be who she is.....
Allowing her to be who she is...BEING MINDFUL what I am communicating with her...
And allowing her to be who she is...her authentic self... no matter how it may seem to me...or to anyone else around us...
What matters is how she feels about doing what she wants to do...

And in my mom’s own words, every single time, I make a small or a big mistake, the answer and the response from her is
Koi gal nahi...
Koi nahi.. ( Its ok )
What if I also learn that its ok... and koi gal nahi...

Happy mother’s day...