My Milestone

When I went over to my son’s bedroom last morning to wake him up for school, I was  suddenly overcome by a wave of emotion. I couldn’t explain it right away as I hadn’t spent any time thinking about it. But there, at the door, I was just caught in a bubble of thought – “Omg! It’s the last day of Ash’s high school! His last exam! The last day of high school when I’m going to wake him up!” I mean, yeah, he technically still has around 2 more years with me before he goes off to University, but hey! Grade 10 was a milestone!

For both of us! And the enormity of that realization was not lost on me.

But, it was going to be a busy day and I pushed back the emotions to send him off to school – hugged him, wished him luck for his last exam, shouted out an “I love you!” and surprisingly got an “I love you too” mumbled in response… and then set out and about to prepare myself for a long drive to the outskirts of Bangalore for one of my ladies meets to present a debrief of the conference I attended a few weeks ago.

And while I was getting ready, my mind drifted away to sixteen years ago – although it felt like yesterday – a time when I was navigating my first pregnancy with care, caution, excitement and a heavy dose of loneliness, fear, antagonism and negativity. Motherhood opened up another channel of protective shielding – a desperate attempt to guard my baby from harm and yet struggle to keep my sanity in the face of post-natal depression brinking on suicide.

Thankfully, somewhere in that dark tunnel, I sensed the light wouldn’t be much further and trundled onwards to reclaiming my lost footing on the ladder of independence and slowly climbed my way up the steep mountain of building a financially stable environment…. which over time, included my two younger children.

At this point, there will be some who will question, “If things were so bad, why did you have more children? Why didn’t you just leave him?”

And that is when I say,

“Denial is a real thing. Even the smartest of us often come face-to-face with situations that have us denying their very existence. From irrational fear of an anticipated eventuality, or a misplaced belief of lack of options, the range of reasons that crop up are infinite!”

So I’ll leave that conversation for another day…

What remains is that, it was my son who got me through my initial brush with suicide. It was his face and smile that kept me going – sometimes retreating into an impenetrable shell of normalcy – a shell that would numb out everything else, and at other times surging ahead with an energy so furious that leaps and bounds happened.

Anyway… so yesterday, the totality of sixteen years came flooding back – the sleepless nights, fevers, ER visits, stitches, sutures, surgeries and many fractures – the nights when I stayed up mopping his hot brow all the while popping in Panadols to keep my own fever in check, or celebrating his birthday when my spinal disc had angrily prolapsed. The endless parent-teacher conversations to build relationships with every single teacher (to date) to making sure I was there for every single concert and event he participated in – front row seats – coming to school straight from 12 hours night shifts and no sleep to ensure that he saw me in the audience. Mindless drives from Dubai to Sharjah 4, sometimes 5 times a day from work to collect him from home to a class and back home at night to homework, bath, dinner and bed.

The endless soccer trainings at 6am to street jazz classes that needed special shoes to be purchased at the other end of Dubai! And then swimming lessons and parties and, of course, our many, many mall visits and movie dates on my days off. Oh, and finding a gymnastics school in Dubai and seeing him win his Gulf Olympic curriculum GOLD medal for the Vault routine just days before we left Dubai.

And juggling all this with two younger ones in tow – their activities, swimming, ballet & what not (for the sappy blog post when they graduate).

And yes, the enormity of sixteen years is constricting my throat once again… because….

Taking in the injustice of suffering humiliation and abuse all the while biting it back (mostly) and giving it back (occasionally) because it was important to remain safe.

So, as I woke him up last morning, you may imagine how I was overcome with that wave of emotion – that reminded me of the many, many mornings that I had woken him up to go to school and yelled my lungs out at him to please hurry up instead of taking his own sweet time (40 minutes!!) on the toilet – because, “Chill Mama… It’s ok… the bus will wait!” – and of course, multi-tasking with waking the younger two for school, packing school lunch & snack boxes and preparing for breakfast.

I realized that in all his 12 years of schooling I would have collectively missed waking him up maybe for 2 months max – including any travel days, sick days when my nanny took over, or something like that. (And even then, I called him every single day if I was travelling, and was on top of homework, friend trouble, meetings, birthday parties, everything)

And logistics aside, it was my lap, my arms, my hug that comforted the boo-boos and the heartache of school bullying, neighbors and nasty teachers. It is “Mamaaa” who knows what he is looking for and where he has misplaced it and it is also “Mamaaa” who can tell with one look when there is something more serious to attend to… It was “Mamaaa” who had his soccer kit packed for seven months supporting him for his I-League practices and games – driving 62 kms 5 days a week to get him to the training grounds and back… and it is also “Mamaaa” who sat up across time zones helping him to write his speech as he stood for the school cabinet elections – and won! And, not to mention, “Mamaaa” who just ran all over Bangalore to get him his graduation and prom suits and spammed her friends facebook walls with pictures of him before he left for the party.

And I’m still wiping the tears off my cheek as I think back because now I really, truly, realize something.

I did good. I did more than bloody more – I did great! Because I did it… all alone.

And here’s the bottom line – it was something I heard at one of the speeches at the Women Economic Forum by Dr. Adaeze Oreh, with whom I had a long and heartfelt conversation after her session. Little did I know then, that her words that I had noted and quoted at my debrief with the ladies yesterday, were so special because they were so specific to me.

This is what she said.

Women should own their success. When you do some good work, own it! Women need to be seen for who they are and acknowledged. ~ Dr. Adaeze Oreh

So there you have it! A long way from where I started – many more steps to take… but… I did good… and this is as much my milestone as is his.