Lost and Found

There’s no question in my mind that that letter came to me just when I needed it. I’m certain it came to make me smile on a particularly gloomy day.

And yet, after the euphoria faded, I cried for the first time in three days. Then the baby woke up and wham! Just like that, I got sucked into motherhood.

Between changing dirty diapers, breastfeeding, potty training, research on vaccines, gentle parenting, learning philosophies, playschools, and countless google searches on ‘is my child a psychopath’, I just forgot about the letter.

I remembered a whole year later, when Mister said that it was the anniversary of Z coming home in my arms. I didn’t remember what the letter said, but I remembered vividly how it made me feel.

So I spent the next few days actively searching for it in odd places, but I never found it. I eventually gave up any hope of seeing it again.

A month ago, the letter found me again when my child was sick and I was full to the brim with self-doubt, as mothers often are.

“Somehow whenever I think of you as a mother, the image of a woman who shares her stories, some funny and outright embarrassing and others that have a lesson or two hidden, one who is fiercely protective and also lets them speak their minds, never enforces her opinion in matters of love and religion and always a guide, friend and fellow traveler in the course of life” 

Thank you, Nisha, for reminding me of what my true north as a parent is. I’m eternally grateful.

Lost

With the newborn nestled in my too-tired arms, I looked at Mister and mom’s happy, excited faces – none of them had left my side even once through the two nights we spent at the hospital after I gave birth.

As Mister pried open the lock on the house, I waited behind him, feeling intensely unhappy. I was about to walk into the door for the first time as a mother, into an untidy, dusty old home instead of a “Welcome home baby” banner or a red carpet.

As the door creaked open, I realized that there was a carpet alright – made with the dust and the mail that had accumulated while we were gone. Mom picked it up, and as we struggled to settle down, she announced that one of them was addressed to me.

I was exhausted, and I asked Mister to check what it was. Hey, it looks like fan mail, he said. From the girl in Hyderabad who sent you a letter before.

Read it, I said.

Now?

Yes. Please.

He opened his mouth to tell me it could wait until he had put the luggage down (I had packed a pretty big bag for the hospital), but I suppose he sensed how I was feeling so he read the letter anyway.

I could physically *feel* the happiness flood through me as I heard the first few words. I hope this letter catches you at a time when you have your bundle of joy safely nestled in your arms. 

There’s your warm welcome, I said to the baby. I like to think that he smiled in his sleep.

(to be continued)

of answers

Words languishing
on yellowing paper,
corners rusted brown.
Today,
among ancient diaries
I found an old letter.
Undelivered. Written
a day or
a century ago.
it doesn’t matter
anymore. The letter
that was never sent.
Between its writing
and reading,
time cracks
as my questions
find their own answers