Today as I sit with a cup of tea after my morning yoga, I remember the toll the last two years have had on me.
When one is on tenterhooks, one seeks a remedy. How, then, I sought refuge in books: famous travelogues, best selling fiction, or the fortnightly edition of Open: I realised no book had the power to offer me solace.
My mind simply refused to obey, the flow of never-ending thoughts woke me at unearthly hours.
Books had never failed to comfort me in the sorest of hours. My full shelved library for the first time failed to keep me occupied. Then, I turned to crochet, but the hook was as stubborn as my mind. I failed to persist in following any pattern. My mind was on some kind of a loop.
No, I wasn’t going through a mental health issue, what I was going through was extremely stressful. I was planning for my daughter’s wedding alone. There were days when I wanted to be heard just so that a doubt could be cleared, or to keep check on the financial budgeting. In a household with two very stressed individuals, there was no one to lend an ear, each preoccupied with their own set of worries.
How I wished my daughters were by my side.
But that luxury could not be had for the simple reason that my older daughter was working as a part-time writer and full- time barista in London. Long heart to heart talks could not happen, our time zones seldom aligned.
Except for a few snatches of conversations about wedding planning and other arrangements, we shared nothing. That’s when I felt the need to have my family around me.
And the younger daughter, the bride to be, was busy preparing for a competitive exam. She was in no mood to listen or talk to me. Nothing excited her, not the trousseau she had chosen, nor the final design on her wedding card. She had set her mind on a master’s program in NIFT.
Little did she realise she would leave our house within a couple of months, and here we had reached a stalemate.
Either we were at each other’s throats or there was abnormal silence in our house. It was so different from that house that had echoed with boisterous laughter and conversations.
Honestly, I don’t know what had gotten into each of us. We had no time for each other, we’d become walls. I felt as if I’d failed as a parent. A friend’s words echoed: give your daughter education and independence and you lose them for life. Had I lost my daughters? In the eye-opening discussions I had with a close friend, I realised I was not the only mother facing this issue.
Though I didn’t want to, how I rued and regretted giving my daughters wings to soar that day.
Until a thought flashed, “I chose to live my life independently, on my terms, so why was I depriving them of the same.”
My daughters had studied in different cities and I had long before accepted the idea of an empty nest. Was I being hostile to my young girls because I wanted to attune them to this world? Or was it because I deeply dreaded parting with them? Was I replicating the empty nest illusion in the here and now?
I knew, the empty nest syndrome could be devastating. The more I sought a beam of light, the more gray weariness settled in. Perhaps, it was because I was grappling with new and unknown challenges. Challenges that I had foreseen, but that hadn’t sunk in.
And then November set in, the count down had begun. My daughter from London had arrived. Though I chose to speak little, she fathomed my mind. She played the trucemaker. She acted as the bridge over troubled waters, speaking to each of us separately.
In December, she took charge of the monstrous lists I had prepared: as she delegated each job and executed it successfully, with tears in my eyes I thought each mother must allow her children/daughters to soar.
(Batool Idrish Siamwala)
The Momma Clan 
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