She sat there in front of me, frail and tired after a day of ceaseless travel through a city that is bursting at its seams. She has traveled from the north to the south, and across, all over this city. She came back home, saw me and her face burst out into a gentle smile that did not disappear for a very long time.... A smile that came despite the weariness...
She was my surrogate grandmother.
I haven't seen my paternal grandmother since she died early - early enough, that she did get to see her eldest son (my dad) growing up from the young lad that he was then. This was my grandmother's sister. We've met them all through our travels in the summer vacations during school days... but these were all fleeting meetings which did not do much to leave a strong neural imprint in my mind.
But then this was a different meeting. I met them after sooo long and I felt their hand rise up to bless, and it was beautiful.... It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to have their hand on my head !! As she beamed on seeing me, I knew that some bonds just cannot be broken despite distances.
The ties of the bloodline are strong. They leave their seed and no matter how ill cared it may be, it grows into a tree. It has a resilience which is mind-numbing. There is a love which comes because of that knowledge of shared lineage.
It was a beautiful moment. A moment that made me want my grandparents to be there!
A moment that made all inconvenience disappear for me and for her.
She was hard on hearing as age was fast catching up with her, but her eyes were still burning bright. She still spoke nineteen to a dozen trying to convince me to not sleep on the floor and offering to sleep on the couch instead. She tried her best to convince me about getting married. She had ceaseless questions.
She was my surrogate grandmother.
She made me miss my grandmother. I missed having one to tell me stories, to narrate anecdotes, to play with me and to sleep on. To oil my hair and to cook all the wonderful things that grandmothers do...
I am not sure how it will be having a grandmother around full time (with the incessant marriage advice and the correcting) but i sure know that, for that one day, I wanted one too. She made me want to leave my head under her palm and to not let go. Frail, though she was, I felt protected by her. It was amazing and it is nothing but the wondrous ways of nature.
I sit her typing these words hours after they happened only to try and freeze the essence of that meeting into words, so that years from now, I can still pull on that same string and retrieve the same memory trace, not like a pensieve but hopefully not too far from it too.
She was my surrogate grandmother.
I haven't seen my paternal grandmother since she died early - early enough, that she did get to see her eldest son (my dad) growing up from the young lad that he was then. This was my grandmother's sister. We've met them all through our travels in the summer vacations during school days... but these were all fleeting meetings which did not do much to leave a strong neural imprint in my mind.
But then this was a different meeting. I met them after sooo long and I felt their hand rise up to bless, and it was beautiful.... It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to have their hand on my head !! As she beamed on seeing me, I knew that some bonds just cannot be broken despite distances.
The ties of the bloodline are strong. They leave their seed and no matter how ill cared it may be, it grows into a tree. It has a resilience which is mind-numbing. There is a love which comes because of that knowledge of shared lineage.
It was a beautiful moment. A moment that made me want my grandparents to be there!
A moment that made all inconvenience disappear for me and for her.
She was hard on hearing as age was fast catching up with her, but her eyes were still burning bright. She still spoke nineteen to a dozen trying to convince me to not sleep on the floor and offering to sleep on the couch instead. She tried her best to convince me about getting married. She had ceaseless questions.
She was my surrogate grandmother.
She made me miss my grandmother. I missed having one to tell me stories, to narrate anecdotes, to play with me and to sleep on. To oil my hair and to cook all the wonderful things that grandmothers do...
I am not sure how it will be having a grandmother around full time (with the incessant marriage advice and the correcting) but i sure know that, for that one day, I wanted one too. She made me want to leave my head under her palm and to not let go. Frail, though she was, I felt protected by her. It was amazing and it is nothing but the wondrous ways of nature.
I sit her typing these words hours after they happened only to try and freeze the essence of that meeting into words, so that years from now, I can still pull on that same string and retrieve the same memory trace, not like a pensieve but hopefully not too far from it too.
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