Summer Letter for My Sons

I see you running freely in your grandparent's gardens. Without a worry, the wind caressing your soft cheeks. The dog giving you company and companionship like no other.

I see you climbing tress. Experiencing Nature in such intimate ways , holding onto branches with such agility and zest. I hope you hold onto the wisdom of trees with the same passion. They teach us the power of staying grounded,  of standing your ground, of laying your roots, of giving and giving and then giving some more. Of standing tall, of hosting, of grace.

We take our grandparent's homes for granted. We pompously assume these homes will always exist to host us, to welcome us, to indulge us, to give us comfort. We feel entitled to their hospitality.

We think our Uncles, aunts ,cousins from different parts of the world will always be cooped up in bedrooms and living rooms with countless cups of teas being served and warm snacks being presented. We are too young to remember and appreciate the youth of our elders.

I see old pictures and am in awe of how youthful, well dressed and beautiful the elders were in their youth. How fashionable our Khalas were with their radiant choice of colors before they moved to the more nude and pastel side of the color palette. How much charisma exuded from our younger Mamoo who till now is lovingly called "Chotha" but is a Dada himself. What elegance and confidence with which our phupos draped their sarees as their brothers looked handsome dressed in crisp shirts. We think who we see now was always this frail, this bland, this quiet. They were so much much more.

I look at old pictures and now notice the finer details like how artistic my parent's home was. How the plants were grouped together at varying heights with the right amount of light to make them shine. How beautiful the rugs were, how shiny my mom's exquisite silver collection was, how she hosted countless people with grace and poise, how elegant the dinner parties were  that she hosted,  how my parent's friends had not just brilliant minds but also were great souls. We forget all this or we take it for granted till you get older yourself.

I see my mom now waiting to get on the escalator, waiting for the right moment, the right step. It reminds me of my hesitation on first climbing an escalator as a 6 year old.  Almost like we are waiting for it to slow down just enough for us to take that monumental step.  I remember how my mother held my hand and got me on. I feel life coming full circle when now I hold her hand and get her on. We both have learned that the escalator like life and youth doesn't slow down or adjust its pace for our age or stage of life. We just have to be that person to each other that gives us the hand, the confidence ,the  comfort and the company to get on and seamlessly continue the conversation that was happening before the hesitation of the escalator.

I see old letters family and friends have written to me and my parents. How with age, with time, our letters and conversations  become shorter. It seemed that before  there was not enough paper to hold the sender's voluptuous emotions, stories and sentences . Words were bursting from the seams of letters, ended with words of affection, signed with sincerity. Now, the silence in many relationships seems to be bursting with unsaid words, unexpressed emotions, and signed with disillusion and judgement.

All I can hope is that immerse yourself in the moment with the same grip that you hold onto tree branches with and that you cherish these simple moments. They are not just moments but rather historic moments being written in your story, in your history, chapters in your biography.

I hope your chapters are focused more on what others have done for you rather than what all they didn't do. I pray that your pages emanate giving, loving and forgiving.  I hope I'm able to pass on the invaluable gift my parents gave me of only remembering the best times in relationships and drowning out everything unpleasant in the ink of compassion and understanding.  It is this unique gift that I rarely see around me. It is this gift that seperates the grateful from the entitled,  the givers from the takers, the happy from the unhappy.

Love,
Mama
Dehradun
July 2022
With rain in the background.....