My friend thrust a few pages into my hand. Her scribble was her emotional outpour. She seemed to have penned her pent-up anguish. While the media flashed the news of the legal grant of passive euthanasia and the public response, a mother who had tirelessly nursed her special son could feel the turmoil of the caregiving parents.
As a mother, my friend had sensed that her son was a special child, even before the doctors declared. She accepted God’s will and thus commenced her journey into caregiving. She knocked on all doors: specialist to therapist; peer/ fakir/ dargah/ mandir, and at the same time strived to bring up her child in the best possible manner.
She admitted him to school, enrolled him in a hobby class, registered him in a skill course, arranged a home tutor, and practically left no stone unturned in order to make him self-reliant. Lest the boy feel an outcast amongst peers, she opened the gates of her home and heart, and in trooped the playmates. The children of the neighbourhood enjoyed open access to toys and games, besides snacks and sweets.
Slowly over the years, the lad’s mobility was hampered. Yet he would come to drop off and pick up his mother from college. He was always smiling, well-dressed, and greeting everyone with his magnetic charisma. I salute the arduous efforts of the mother in devising ways of movement and social inclusion, while providing him comfort through supportive gadgets.
The toughest phase was the long span he spent in the ICU. The diligent woman would discharge her duty as a teacher, then rush back to the waiting arena and keep a vigil over the glass door. Every day she would prepare a different liquid diet, try new recipes, even though it would be administered through food pipe. She emerged as a stronger person after the emotionally and financially draining phase.
Presently, she has turned his room into a hi-tech ICU: from a hydraulic bed to the latest equipment to a dedicated ICU-certified caretaker. Medical terminology, procedures, medicines–her knowledge is up-to-date. In fact, all our colleagues discuss their maladies and prescriptions with her and follow her advice to the core. She herself is suffering from health issues, but her son is paramount to her. Her world is restricted to home and college. A conscientious employee, a popular teacher and a philanthropist, that’s who she is.
We have traversed the journey of life together, bared our hearts to each other, but never, not on her toughest day, has she uttered a word of regret or complaint. She knows no miracle will manifest, so she has embraced the stark truth and treads the path of a caring mother with zealous affection.
A salute to her indomitable spirit as a mother.
Suruchi Kalra Choudhary
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