From: Major General MSS Krishnan

Ode to a Mother    

Posted On Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Women can enter any male bastion but do men have it in them to compete with the power of motherhood? ...

It was just like any other day-warm and sultry. I returned home in the evening with hope and expectation that my mother’s condition would have improved. Was I being foolish? Did the doctor not diagnose the old lady’s condition as non-infectious, progressive and irreversible? But I did find my mother more cheerful than before with a bounce in her speech. If she could, she would have actually bounced off the bed that had been her world for the past few months.
With a mischievous smile, my mother greeted me, ‘Hi’. I smiled back acknowledging her greetings. She continued, ‘Day after tomorrow, we will be celebrating your birthday, but I want you to try this now.’ So saying, she handed me a gift-wrapped package. I opened it and to my surprise, found a smart striped shirt and an exclusive T-shirt, the types I had longed to possess. I wondered how my mother who had been bed ridden for more than a year was able to order precisely the kind of clothes I had wished for. Overwhelmed, I thanked her in as many words as I could find. I could not find many.
Early on the morning on my birthday, the door bell rang. A young errand boy handed over a bouquet of roses to me and said, “This is from your mother.” I rushed to my mother and exclaimed how beautiful the roses were. She calmly instructed, “Just count the number of flowers.”  I did and found as many beautiful roses in the bouquet as my age. She said, “One flower for every year that you have spent with me.” I was once again floored by the love, affection and thoughtfulness with which the bouquet had been delivered to me.
Incapacitated by age and illness, with failing eyesight and impaired hearing, unable to walk and confined to a single bed-yes that was the condition of my mother-but those physical obstacles did not deter her from ordering gifts over a mobile phone ensuring precisely what she wanted to gift her son. Yet it was indeed difficult to contain my emotions.
Fifteen days later, my mother departed for her heavenly abode leaving me to find an answer to the question-“Do we require a single Women’s Day or Mother’s Day in a year to recognise the pure attained love of a mother?”
Women can enter any male bastion but do men have anything in them to compete with the power of motherhood?

Article by Major General MSS Krishnan who is VSM, MGAoC, Eastern Command