An extraordinary girl

About My Mother

Recently a young friend of mine affectionately teased me by telling me I had been born with a golden spoon in my mouth. "How much we had to struggle and suffer to achieve a modicum of comfort in life!" she said.

"Do you think so?" I replied. "Must you judge only by outer appearances? All right, I don't mind your teasing. You still have a lot of growing up to do despite your hardships. Just bear in mind that money and wealth are not everything in life."

Then I told her of my own experience, and how I looked after my ailing mother for five or six long years without any assistance. My mother had diabetes and her condition worsened with age. Finally she was confined to bed. I had to help her to the bathroom, which was no easy matter, because she was so heavy and I for my part was small and frail. With this routine day and night, often I did not get any sleep for days on end. Then one day, she discovered she couldn't walk any more. "What's the matter?" I asked her, "Why can't you walk? Yesterday your legs were all right. What has happened today?"

But she was as bewildered as I was. I had to call our family doctor only to be told that it was a common feature of diabetes that paralysis could suddenly strike the lower limbs.

"What can I do?" I asked him in panic. "How will manage her alone now?"

Then I suddenly remembered how once when my astrologer had started to tell my mother, "Listen, in future — " she had protested vehemently:

"No, no! I don't want to know the future. Why probe into what God has hidden from us?"

"So be it," the astrologer had replied. "But allow me to say one thing. A day will come when you will lose your power to walk due to paralysis."

Since then, I used to constantly tell my mother, "Ma, pray to the Mother. There is no other way. You know this astrologer's predictions have almost always come true. From now on take refuge in God. Tell Him to protect you."

But all my pleading proved to be of no avail. And now the predicted blow had fallen, while, for me, my miseries had only just begun. If I had had trouble before in helping my mother to the bathroom, now even taking her there became impossible. My son assisted me when he was at home, but the rest of the time I managed alone. How many times I had to change my mother's clothes and bedding! Visiting relatives demanded to know wny I did not employ a nurse, but Mother would object at once, dissolving into tears, "Don't leave me in the hands of nurses," she would plead.

Finally she was fitted with a catheter, and I could have some rest. But when I asked the doctor how long the respite would last, he replied that it would only be for about a month, because if the catheter were kept for longer than that, there would be the risk of infection. At any rate, I thought, at least I can get rest for a month. But a complication quickly set in with blood appearing in the urine. In my disturbed state, I fearfully imagined that my mother might have contracted cancer. However, when I consulted the doctor, he told me that whatever the diagnosis, nothing further could be done for her.

I objected: "That can't be. I must try to do something, whatever her condition, otherwise I'll be plagued by a sense of guilt for the rest of my life." I recalled how due to my negligence my mother had lost the sight of one eye. When the trouble began she complained of blurred vision from time to time. The doctor diagnosed a cataract. But when her vision in one eye had been totally lost, another doctor declared that diabetes had been the culprit and had dried up the nerves. Then when he examined the other eye, he found it was suffering from the same defect. He prescribed a medicine to be applied once a week. Thus the eye was saved. If only I had known enough to do the same for the first eye! I could not get over the remorse I felt in my very soul for the loss of that eye. So I was determined not to let such a thing happen again. I would learn the cause first, then decide on the next step.

Meanwhile, my mother's condition worsened beyond words. She soiled her bed which I cleaned myself, and she had to be fed by hand . We thought of taking her to a nursing home, but she refused outright. Besides, the charges were beyond our means, amounting to Rs. 1000 per day, and that too when we did not know how long the patient would survive. It was quite possible she would live another year.

A relative saw how conscientiously I was performing my task and remarked, "You must have a deep love for your mother. Otherwise none but a yogi could perform such ideal service — it would be humanly impossible."

But then something quite unexpected happened. One day, I left my mother alone and went to the bazar with a friend. When I returned, I found Mother had fallen down the staircase from the third floor to the second. We were stunned to find her lying on the landing. To carry her back up again was no easy matter, considering her massive weight. We had to call the neighbours for help. When we got her upstairs, we saw that she had probably dislocated her shoulder. Upon our asking her why she had gone out of her room, she replied, "Somebody seemed to be calling me. I got up with great difficulty, and opened the door. I saw someone who looked exactly like you, standing there. 'Come, come, ma,' she was calling. Then, when I tried to step out, I slipped and rolled down the stairs to the place where you found me."

I was non-plussed! Who was this woman who had impersonated me? What could have been her motive in playing such a malicious trick?

We took my mother to a doctor who confirmed that' she had dislocated her shoulder, and ruled that it would have to go into plaster. But luckily our family doctor did not feel that in her condition she could tolerate a plaster cast. He advised a simple bandage instead.

On another occasion, during my mother's illness, a friend invited me and my cousin brother to dinner. My son too had gone out to dine with friends after which he planned to go to the cinema. Later he was to pick me up from my friend's house and take me home. I fed my mother, and then left, leaving my key with my mother. After the dinner, I decided not to wait for my son and returned home in a taxi with my cousin. I rang the bell expecting that my mother would open the door. But, when after repeated ringing there was no response, I began to panic. "Good Lord!" I exclained. "What if my mother is lying unconscious inside!" We could think of no way to open the door. Even though I prayed frantically to the Lord, or, perhaps because of it, my head began to reel and darkness swept over me as though I were going to faint. Like a mad woman I ran out into the street till I stood in the middle of the traffic passing in both directions. Drivers began to shout abuse at me, but I was so dazed I did not know what to do or where to go.

All at once, a car stopped right in front of me and my son got out of it and, stupefied, exclained, " Ma, what are you doing in the middle of the road amidst the passing cars? Have you lost your mind?" I flung my arms around him and he helped me into his car. "Oh my gosh!" He said. "Luckily the cinema was full and I was passing this side on my way to another one!" Reaching home, he opened the door of our apartment with his own key. We found Mother lying senseless on the floor, and when we called the doctor he told us it was a case of kidney failure. He gave her repeated injections in the arm. After some time fluid began to spurt out from her mouth and would not stop. We began to pray to the Lord. When it did not work, I thought suddenly to make her drink চরণামৃত (Charanamrita - Water touched by the feet of the Deity) and went to Sri Aurobindo's photo with a cup of water. That worked like a charm and the flow stopped gradually.

Another time during my mother's illness it happened that I did not have any money in the house, and it was raining heavily. Where and how could I go in that downpour? My mother had to be fed and there was nothing to eat. I was terribly upset. Somehow I managed to go out and reach a house we owned in which the tenant owed us rent. I explained my predicament to the man and asked him to give me some money, and he answered that I should not worry. If I went home, he would bring me the money later.

I returned but there was no sign of him even though I waited and waited. The idea of not having anything to eat tormented me. I fell to weeping before the Lord's photo, then suddenly I heard his voice, "Why are you so worried? I'm here. How can you starve when I am with you? You will get the money."

And then, in the dead of the night, in that downpour, I heard a knock on the door. It was our tenant with the money in his hand. "Please take the rent," he said humbly; "I am sorry I couldn't come earlier."

But on such a stormy night? And then I heard the voice. "Well, I gave you my word, and I meant it." I can't express how sweet was the voice of the Lord, the same voice I have heard so often.