A Thousand Times Over.

Both her sons have grown up, the older one is studying in the States and the younger one, though he is here, barely gets time to talk to her. One afternoon she decides to open all the photo albums and see how little her kids used to be and how they were hers more than anyone else’s. She smiles, laughs and even sheds a tear or two as she goes down the memory lane. All those pictures refresh the memories of sweeter and simpler times. But there is one picture whose memory doesn’t have to be refreshed, she clearly remembers that day even after 22 years 5 months and 25 days. The memory goes like this..

The year 1993 had seen the dawn of just another day. But in her heart she knew it wasn’t just another day, it was much more. Soon her body confirmed the same and that made the family erupt with joy. It was happening for the first time in their house so their excitement knew no bounds. The news reached as far as Gujarat and God knows where else in no time, making their extended families just as excited, if not more. Her husband made her sit in the car with utmost care, just how he had been doing for the past nine months. He had done his share of reading to take good care of her. He had become so good with it that he could have won a Husband of the Year award, if there was one. But that day he could barely think straight, that’s how happy he was, and why wouldn’t he be? She knew how he had been waiting for that day to come. In fact, she knew how not just her husband but everyone close to them had been waiting for the day to come. But in all of that happiness and even the pain that she was experiencing, there was something not so right. She was feeling something, not physically but a little deeper. She was happy, she was, but not for the start of something new and beautiful. She was happy for the end of something not so beautiful. She loved the idea of what was coming but somehow she couldn’t not be glad that the whole phase she had been through was coming to an end. But why, why would she feel so? Was it the frustration of living an overly cautious and a restricted life for nine months? Maybe she didn’t want to be told not to wear what she wanted to or not to eat what she wanted to. Or maybe she was tired of the mood swings she experienced, the trouble she caused to her husband or just anyone else. Or maybe much more, what no one else knew that she experienced. So she, in labor, was taken inside the room. She was ready for the pain, she had been through so much of it already. But of course this was way more painful, only she and other women who’ve experienced it would know what it is to be there, going through all of it. So after immense pain and pushing there was a moment where everything came to a standstill. And then, to everyone’s joy, they heard the crying of a baby, a little beautiful baby. Everyone was overjoyed, there was happiness, there were tears and there was a crying baby.

She was tired, she was panting but all of that was suddenly forgotten when they let her hold the baby, her baby, in her arms. It was a little boy wound tightly in white cloth. And when she took him in her arms, she just stared at him, she didn’t know what to do. She cried, she smiled, she laughed and she cried again. And when the little boy faintly smiled for the first time, she realised how she could do all of this, from the very start, a thousand times over.