RELATIONSHIPS
Unforgettable Conversations With My Daughter
They taught me love
“I am absolutely ashamed of him,” my daughter said, stamping her little feet.
I looked up in surprise. She had returned from school just then. All of six years, her face wore an enraged look while her curly hair rose up in indignation. I tried hard to suppress a smile. Seeing that little body so infuriated, tickled my funny bone.
Of course, she knew me very well.
“Mumma, can you not take anything seriously?” She said indignantly.
“Of course, I can my dear. I am all ears,” I assured her.
“Do these boys have no sense of shame?” She asked her hands on her slender hips.
“Of course, they have. Who is born in this world without it?”
“Then why does not my little brother have an iota of it?”
My mouth became an ‘O’.
“I hardly know how to lift my head up and walk in school,” she said, covering her face.
Now, this was serious. What could it possibly be?
“My friends tease me. This will not do. You must fill some sense in his empty head. You must, Mumma,” she cried.
“This is not the way you should speak about your little brother. He deserves respect,” I reprimanded her.
She made a face at that.
“He does not deserve any.”
“But what has he done?”
I was becoming more perplexed by the minute.
She walked the long corridor thinking hard. Her eyebrows were arched while a finger rested on her cheek, evidently in deep thought.
“How to tell you…” she wondered aloud.
“Do you know about love?” She stopped abruptly in front of me.
Probably my face wore a lost look.
“I knew this. This Mumma will not know anything about love,” she stamped her foot in disgust.
Then becoming calmer, she said, “Love, Mumma, the love that they show in the movies. That which happens between a boy and a girl. That kind of love…”
“What does that have to do with him?” I asked.
“He has fallen in love!” She cried indignantly.
“But he is only three years old!” I interjected.
“Such are these boys! He has no sense of shame and he thinks I also have none. My friends all make fun of me. Can he not care about the reputation of his only sister who unfortunately studies in the same school?” she said, holding her head in her hands.
I thought she was overreacting but seeing her sense of despair, I kept quiet. I also removed myself from the scene, for deep rumbles were rising in the depths of my existence and the floodgates of mirth were dangerously close to bursting.
“You cannot run away like this. You ought to do something about it, now!” She had followed me into the kitchen.
“I sure will. Let him come back home. He is playing in the neighbour’s house now.”
“He can light a fire and then just disappear, letting others burn.”
“You change your school clothes and come for lunch. I have made your favourite dish,” I told her.
She squealed in delight and rushed up to her room.
As she ate the food she loved, I could not help smiling. This child of mine had a temper right from the time she was born. She stopped breathing and turned blue all over and these bursts of anger alarmed me no end. I turned her upside down and slapped her feet till she cried again and breathed in. I slept in her arms, holding her tight at night. We were the world to each other. It all changed when my son arrived on the scene. My water broke at night and I had to slowly disentangle her little hands from around my neck and slip away to the hospital.
The next day when she came to meet me in the hospital, her pained face looked at the floor. I called her but she would not lift her eyes to meet mine.
How could I leave her and come away?
“I had to come to the hospital, my dear,” I whispered.
“But why did you not wake me up?”
“They do not allow children in this hospital. I thought it was better for you to sleep instead,” I told her.
This was too unsatisfactory an explanation for her.
I returned home within two days. There was so much work to be done. She had to be fed and taken care of, too. The four-story building where I stayed was not made for kids. She could just fall off the stairs or the balcony. I left my son and went looking for her when she did not respond to my calls. My stitches of caesarean section came out and the wound gaped. It could not be stitched again. I suffered for months together. My son took up all my time. She felt lonely and lost. Dark circles formed below her eyes.
“I do not like this brother, Mumma. Why don’t you drop him back to the hospital you brought him from?”
“That cannot be done. He has come out of my tummy like you.”
“But I do not want him here.”
“He has an equal right to be here, like you.”
“You love me, don’t you? So give him away to anyone who wants him.”
“I love both of you equally and will not give away either of you to anyone else.”
Time is a great transformer. It heals almost every wound. She slowly developed an immense love for her little brother. He has been sent by God to give you company when your parents are not around anymore, I told her. She believed it. I believed it. He grew up to look up to her. They became inseparable. I could safely leave him in her care when I was away.
Their presence added a perennial rainbow to my life.
My son rushed up to me after some time. He had the habit of checking up on me during his busy playing schedule. He had the self-appointed duty of playing with all the neighbour’s kids. We caught hold of him and made him sit on his high chair. His presence would have to last the questioning session.
“Do you have friends at school?” I asked haltingly.
My daughter sat opposite him with glaring eyes.
“Yes, I have.”
“Is it a girl?”
His face brightened up at that.
“See, I told you…shameless fellow,” my daughter jumped.
I gestured to her to be quiet.
“Do you spend time with her?”
“He even follows her to the washroom,” she snorted.
“Do you like her?”
“Yes, Mumma. I like her very much. She shares my tiffin, talks and laughs with me. She is the only one who understands our language,” he said with satisfaction.
All the other students spoke a local dialect which he did not understand. She was the only person he could talk to, in the whole class.
“So, you understand now why he is friendly with her,” I told her.
“But you know, she never shares her goodies with me. She only eats off my tiffin. Sometimes I do not want to share when she does not,” he said.
“It is all right. I stuff enough food in your tiffin. Do you share with the intention of receiving something from her in return?” I asked.
He replied in the negative.
Beware of the trap of expectations. It is the cause of heartache and heartburn, grief and disaster in relationships. It can siphon your life like the steam off a tea cup. The hands that take from you, are seldom the ones that give back. This chain of give and take involves the Creator and makes his world go around. When you receive from unexpected quarters, thank and receive with self-respect, for what you have given is coming back to you.
“Why do you follow her to the washroom? You know my friends make fun of you,” my daughter said calmly.
“That side of the wing is dark. She feels afraid to go there alone. Can I go play now?” he asked, sliding off the chair.
“Your brother is a little gentleman.”
She smiled a naughty bright smile and disappeared too.
Ten years later...
“You are not as innocent as you seem to be.”
I was aghast.
“Would we have been on this planet, if you had not known about that kind of love? I was so innocent then.”
Our eyes met.
“Why did you not tell me then?”
“There is an opportune time for everything.”
The road is long. Every turn unfolds a scene new to enrapture, to teach. Little lessons make way for new higher lessons. There is great beauty in those little lessons of innocent love when the birds sing, the butterflies alight, the buds blossom and when a kid smiles at another.
Once the pleasures of the flesh take over, the mind is a whirlwind. Can a whirlwind explore the beauty around it? It can only whirl itself…
