Missing someone........

"To part is the way of life, to meet is the hope of life....."

-Anon

It was one of those lazy Saturday mornings edging into mid-day almost and I was cooking. Yeah, sometimes such culinary miracles do happen under my roof. Madhu, my 7 year old girl, was constantly in and out of the kitchen asking me for the spelling of various words. Since she loves writing, I did not take her seriously and besides when I am faced with the Herculean task of cooking, everything else pales in significance. Later, she said she wanted to sing me a song.....I nodded absent-mindedly. Then she sang......her sweet voice carrying the words to me over the noisy hum of the kitchen exhaust, the words that she had penned just moments earlier.

With writing skills running in both sides of the family, her own skills at it have ceased to amaze us long ago. I have always seen her write stories with illustrations and I used to joke with Anna that we have a budding author in our family. However, today was the first day I have heard a poem from her. The simple longing in her words, the clarity which which she had expressed her feelings made it impossible for me to take her words lightly, especially the optimism in her last two lines......with a lump in my throat, I reached out to my little hurting girl and hugged her. My daughter was missing her cousins who had stayed with her the last two years. She had bonded with them very well, especially my niece who had looked after her while I was away.

7 or 70 aren't we all plagued by memories of people whom we have left behind........dont we all miss someone in our lives everyday? I have always been given the customary reply to missing someone, "ah time will make it hurt less". Does it? Does time give us the luxury of easing the pain or erasing the memories? I always felt that when we part from someone we love, we are losing a significant part of ourselves. We might meet moments or lifetime later and might be lucky enough to pick up the threads, but we will never be the same people again. The essence of that relationship would always be there, but the intensity would have gone - trying to recapture the past would be nothing but a waste. So if I am given the choice of remembering and hurting over forgetting and moving on, I know what I would choose.

But as a mother, I wanted to protect my child from the pain of separation and wanted her to feel better atleast temporarily. I too gave her the empty promises of time and fooling her tiny heart into believing that things will get better and she will be able to see her cousins soon for holidays or next summer. I also send a silent prayer hoping that when she meets them again, she will be able to recapture what she enjoyed with them or atleast wont be able to notice the subtle but definitely distorting effects of time on their relationship.

Madhu's song for the day :)

If I love someone,

If I miss someone

If they are gone,

What will I do?

If they are here,

I will be with cheers

But since they are not,

I am with tears.

It was so much fun,

but now it is done

But once they come

It will all start again.