When I grew up in this colony, we had a Maharashtrian couple staying opposite to us. They had an only son who was handicapped. He was very fair of about our same age. His limbs so thin, unable to do anything by himself, he would just groan all day in his mother's arms.
We watched as he swallowed painfully what his mom spooned into his mouth. Sometimes he laughed and his mom would explode into that happy smile.
She would crush some tablets in a tiny mortar with a pestle and put the powder into his mouth. That was his medication for the day.
There was a small girl called Saina who looked after him when his mom wasn't around. She played with us too when she was free.
One day his mom discovered she was pregnant. Months later she had this lovely son, perfectly normal. She had to be extra careful with him too.He loved his older brother, crawling up to him inviting him to play with him.
Years passed. Shekhar, the older one passed away in his mother's lap. She was inconsolable.
We grew up, got jobs, got married.
I went into my hubby's home soon after my marriage. Mom-in-law sat in her bedroom, with her youngest son, of about sixteen, in her lap.
Shekhar!
He resembled him exactly. Thin and unable to speak or understand, he had the same problem as Shekhar. I watched as mom fed him spoonfuls of mashed food, he gurgled and made sounds. It was painful to watch him eat so slowly. Half the stuff would seep onto his bib. Then he'd break into a sudden smile.
Mom carefully cleaned him and bathed him. A teacher then, she would come back and sit with him the whole day, doing her lessons for the next day, holding on to him.
She didn't sleep all night with him on her lap. He had to be kept upright, or he'd choke.
He died some years later at twenty. In her lap.
She was inconsolable.
I am amazed at the resemblance of these two kids. So dearly loved by their moms. And my own uncanny placement in these circumstances.
Is God trying to tell me something? Is He telling me I should look at these hardy moms and find my inspiration from them?
That I shouldn't quit so easily when trouble strikes?
But one thing I'm sure of...
Watching these guys suffer has produced a tremendous compassion in me.
