Mom.

My mom often tells me about the picture that flashes in her mind when she thinks of me. "long fingers- flushed pink" She would recollect the image with dilated eyes " with a teeny movement". The first glimpse she had of me - my fingers. She often tells me that I was the easiest labor she had had, in spite of being her heaviest baby. She tells me how I used to have a flair for food and a penchant to not tire my body trying to crawl or walk. yeah, I was this overweight, Bald baby. Oh yeah, lazy too. The saving grace - long fingers perhaps. So that is what she remembers fondly these many years after having me.
Mom also remembers how I used to be a kleptomaniac when I was in kindergarten. I used to come home with a bag full of pencils that I'd "collect" from the pencil boxes of my class mates. And she used to send them back with an apology note to Mrs.Transfield our kindergarten teacher. Rest assured, I do not have a memory of that, nor do I have any traces of those tendencies left. Promise.
She remembers a lot more things that is classified information too sensitive and private to share in a blog, even on a brave impulse. So I'll let them be that way and try to get back on track without straying too much and boring you with how I was as a baby and toddler.
So - Mom. A word that packs so much of punch in a single syllable. A word that personifies love, sacrifice and duty. A word that is so complexly simple. I am ashamed to admit that I didn't quiet fathom the depths of being a mom till I became one. It was a very complicated feeling. It was vulnerable, happy, actually ecstatic and confusing all rolled into one. Being a mother added a new dimension to being a person. I didn't understand it till date if I'd become more sensible or sensitive after being a mom. When I was taking the flight to the US after I got married, I pulled my mom to a side and begged her not to cry since I was not up to a reciprocation - A teary farewell. I probably didn't like wearing my heart on my sleeve, or I was well aware of a new beginning in my life and didn't want to cry in that daze. My mom obliged. She didn't cry. At least not in front of me. I could almost feel the tears in her eyes. I just didn't see them.

Aarti came into my life and showed me taught me a thing or two. She has me wrapped around her little finger. Just today, I had a bad back, but she insisted that I carry her on my hip, while she would rest her head on my shoulder and her little baby doll would almost puncture my neck in that awkward angle but Aarti would not let go of her. She wanted to cuddle her baby while she wanted me to cuddle mine. So, in an weird group hug and a wrenching pain in the spinal cord, I thought about my mom and thanked her - just like that!

Aarti is still cuddling with her baby doll on this side of the bed, where I sit at her feet with my laptop. Her tender cheek resting on the head of the bald doll and her fingers clutching tightly to the doll's hand. This image will definitely become one of those 'mom' moments for me. A moment that I'll narrate to her till she would be thirty and beyond.

And back to my mom, I should admit that I was the reason for her tears many a time. I made her cry when I left her after my wedding. I made her cry when she was with me in my labor room. I made her cry when I held my baby for the first time. I probably made her cry on many more occasions that I do not remember. I'd reciprocated her tears just once, after walking on this earth for twenty nine years and receiving her services for nearly that long.

When my mom left me after serving me for five long months during and after my delivery, I, for the first time, felt the twitch of heart, that she'd felt for me the moment she saw those long fingers, flushed pink with a teeny moment thirty years ago. I cried openly, awkwardly and childishly, blowing my nose with a box of Kleenex in my hand when she'd left me that warm July night. Cause I'd had more than a baby. I'd had the heart to appreciate a mom.