Family Short Story – Thirty Seven days of Spring. . .
Photo credit: e_v_e_l_i_n_e from morguefile.com
Life at times can turn us into machines. Machines that keep on repeating the same things day in and day out, like a programmed microcontroller. This was the very same thing going on in my house as well. Dad, Mom and me, our life had become a monotonous repetition of usual events. At times too mechanical to be even called a life. But things were about to change, though for a short period of thirty seven days, by a ‘tiny’ human being who came into our lives.
My cousin gave birth to a baby boy, and as she had lost her parents when she was very young, came to our house for a short stay for post delivery care. I had to move out of my room, as it was the most convenient one, and it was full two days hard work for my parents arranging my ‘well maintained’ room. And she came home, with her baby, and I looked at him, a small soft being, occasionally smiling for absolutely no reason. Crying for the rest of the time, obviously. And I could already feel the shield of silence that existed in our lives cracking. A new life had come into our house. His cries, his smiles and his ways of keeping people around him busy, one way or the other.
No wonder why babies are called ‘a bit of heaven on earth’. There was always a presence of heaven around him. The peace one gets by just looking at him. Innocence personified, not intoxicated by worldly greed. And I really wanted to be a baby again. He seemed to have made good friends with my parents quickly. Every time they tried to make him smile he replied with a beautiful smile and to me with an emphatic indifference, all the time. And for a change, sometimes he even cried out. But that didn’t deter me from trying to play with him. Actually I couldn’t help it.
One day, his Mom, my cousin, was having food and he was sleeping in his baby bed. Suddenly he started crying and I went there to check him. The Champion bed wetter had done it again! But he was looking at me with this ‘who asked you to come in here’ look and despite me trying hard, he didn’t stop crying. Then my Mom came in, picked him up and he suddenly stopped crying, to my awe! Then I realized that it was the magic of being a mother. The spell to make a crying baby stop, only mothers know. And looking at my Mom caring him, I could see two and a half decades back through time, when I was in his place. The miracle mothers are, the divinity they posses. I just melted down there with my heart saying silently, ‘dear mom, I am absolutely nothing without you’.
Just thirty seven days, but countless moments to cherish. Thirty seven days flew past us like thirty seven seconds. Thus came the day for him to go to his house. While packing the things, I consciously included all their stuff for I didn’t want her to leave behind anything which could trigger memories. Everyone was sad evidently though nobody showed. And we left for his home, throughout the way everyone speaking about the joyous moments he gave. We reached his house, spent some time there, mostly speaking about him. The time for us to leave was a rather emotional one. Everyone had grown such strong emotional ties with him. Or was it the other way round, not sure. Then blessing him with all our hearts we left.
Throughout our way back home also, the topic wasn’t different. Many poems were written by all about the Thirty Seven Days of Spring he presented to us, within that short journey. A spring we much desperately wanted. Till then I never believed that one tiny bud could bring an entire spring, but he did. I could hear our hearts saying, “Dear child, we know that one day you will grow big and strong. So strong to even carry us on your shoulders. But in our hearts you will always be the baby you are now. The baby who knows nothing else but to cry and smile”.
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