"Unconditional"

"Teri Raushni Meri Khado-Khaal 

Se Mukhtalif Tou Nahee Magar

Tu Qareeb Aa Tujhe Dekh Loon 

Tu Wohi Hai Ya Koi Aur Hai

Sar-a-aaena Mera Aks Hai

Pass-a-aaena Koi Aur Hai"

Hi everyone,

Being painfully punctual throughout my life cheated me of the pleasure one gets from being fashionably late! I love going to dinner parties as overdressed as I can. I don't know where I got this notion in my head that it shows respect and honor to the hostess if I am all decked out for her occasion. 

We were invited to a small dinner locally and as always I was rushing in getting ready. My speed could only be justified if they were handing out prizes at the door for the very first five who entered. I looked at myself in the mirror for one last time to see if I was forgetting anything (not that I ever do), and if everything was intact. For a moment I thought I was looking at my mother.

That image startled me. Seeing her when I looked at myself was so surreal that I  panicked. I sat on my bed, closed my eyes out of sheer fear and wondered what happened. With little knowledge of human psychology, I am aware of the fact that sometimes we see what we want to see. 

Although to this day I have allocated my time, my energies, and my resources to the needs of my children just like my mother did to mine, the connection between a mother and her child boggles my mind. It's so real, yet so mystical, and my brain and my thought process never fail in failing me when I try to somehow contain it in my words. 

In my experience the only need that increases with time is a child's need for his mother. The time we start to think we need our mother perhaps not as much, is actually the time we need her the most. This need and one's vulnerability to all he can be vulnerable to synchronizes all through one's life. The need for your mother has countless faces and every face is as kind and as compassionate as a mother's face, and as needy and as desperate as a child's state of mind. 

Perhaps, she is the biggest forgiving entity God has created, perhaps she is endowed with the kindest heart as far as her children are concerned, perhaps she is blessed with eyes in which her children don't do any wrong, perhaps she chose to be the sacrificial lamb as well as the scapegoat on any given day. Despite all of which she gives to and gives up for her children, we are wrong in thinking that her love is unconditional. Actually it's the most conditional and most authoritative love you might experience in your lifetime. 

She expects respect, she demands honor, she asks to be loved in return and relishes to be cherished and to be missed, and the mother of all, she wants you to stay out of harm's way until the day she dies. She shapes her child the way her heart pleases, she doesn't cut the umbilical cord until she is ready. She expects him to fulfill her unfulfilled dreams, she claims a big chunk of her child's soul and resides in his heart like a queen even if she isn't around anymore. And that's the biggest card she plays!

The inner child in me at the age of 58 realizes and admits her need for her mother more than ever. My mother left my world almost three decades ago and it's high time that I start seeing her in the mirror instead of myself!

Much love,

Shehla