Family Short Story – A Mother’s Guilt
Photo credit: bobby from morguefile.com
Have you ever made a mistake, that has never stopped haunting you? You were the culprit on that one day, in that one minute. But you have been the victim in every living moment, since then? Afraid? Scarred for life? Do you spend restless, sleepless nights, wondering how will your one and only mistake, if discovered, shape the destiny of the most precious relation of your life?
I do.
I have been doing all of the above, since that unfatefull day.
So what can be the biggest mistake a mother can make? Correction, a 1.5 month old mother. A mother delirious with sleepless nights, fighting a postpartum depression, which no one around, was ready to accept? A mother who thought at that stage, that all she did, or did not do was hampering her new born?
Those who stood as live audience to all that transpired on that day, will raise eyebrows, and ask, why so many statements in favor of the culprit?
So, with dejected shoulders and a bowed head, I admit that what I did was wrong. So wrong. Who leaves a wailing 1.5 month old child and runs away? Leaves her home, scared, thinking that the child was better off, with her father and grand parents? Who does that?
I did.
And yes, I did come back. In fifteen minutes. But the mistake had been made. The beautiful glass vase of lovely memories of mother hood has this just one nasty crack.
I am a 2.5 year old mother today. In years, that will fly by with super sonic speed, I will be a teen’s mother. I fret every day. What if the child finds out? What will be her reactions? How will I handle this scenario? I was and I am guilty. How will I handle the accusations? What if the child knows, before I get to own up to her upfront? Will my child love me, as she does today? Will it be the end of her unabashed innocence? “So many questions! So many questions!”, I mutter to my self. I beg sleep to take over my troubled thoughts. For just one more night. Just one more week, month and year.
Tonight, I will just cuddle my little child, close to my heart, and sob quietly. And be sorry for those fifteen minutes. And pray for the millionth time, that the child will forgive me.
And yes, I make a thousand beautiful memories with her every day. You know why? Because, may be, just may be, she will know me better by our memories and not by my mistake in those horrible fifteen minutes. Will she? Will she not?
I think this is my punishment. To suffer the unknown, the eventuality, till it brings forth itself, in front of her. In front of me.
Mean while, I gather her every smile, every giggle, every rhyme behind my closed eyes, in my memories. Because, if, God forbid, she chooses to hate me for ever, when she is confronted by my mistake, my memories of our times spent together will be my strength to move on.
I will have to move on from that moment, at that point, you know? Because, even if she will hate me, she would have loved me till then. And I just have to be there for her. She is my little girl. She has and always been my little girl. Her love or loathing towards me can not change that. Can never change that.
So yes, I will say my share of sorry’s.
But, someday, I will tell her, that I was really scared in those fifteen minutes. Scared, empty and completely lost. And that, it was only her baby smell, still attached to my finger that I used to wipe away my never ending tears, that made me turn around.
Until then, this mother must survive, the first drizzle of every summer.
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