Live My Life

 My Dear, 

I am not doing well. My body is giving up on me and so is my will to live. I now just want my days to end and I can feel that my moments are numbered now. You are all I have and you are the only person I can rightfully call mine.

You were born premature, 2 months. Your father and I spent days near your incubator praying for our bundle of joy to be able to breathe on his own. God was good to us, but he was jealous. He took away your Dad from us, when you were just 2. Accident on the highway they said. But son, I shut down my sadness deep in my heart and away from you because you were all I had. My life revolved around you.

As a child you used to slip and fall a lot and I would always run to pick you up before the tear reached your pink cheeks. Your tears had the power to kill me and your smile was my rescue. Do you remember your food habits as a teen? You rarely liked the homely food I cooked and you would get angry on me for not being able to cook like your friend’s mother did. I forced myself to learn to cook a few dishes which suited your taste, just to make you happy and you were proud of me then. Do you remember being afraid of the dark? Even now you cannot sleep without the dim lights being on. I am not complaining my love but I spoilt you. I took care of all your demands because it was for you that I lived. I was happy when you brought home a beautiful girl saying that you have chosen her to be your wife. My son is now a man.

But why do you shout at me now? My ears have given up and I cannot hear you no matter how much I try. I gave you our house as your marriage gift because I had nothing else left to gift you. I live with you because it is with you that I belong and because I have nowhere else to go. I even give you my monthly pension because you take care of me. My love, why don’t you run to pick me up whenever I slip and fall? Why do I disgust you? Why do you let me sleep starving because my teeth couldn’t chew on the solid food my daughter in law made? Why is there no light in my room since 2 months? Why did you not provide a bulb in my bathroom even after we found a snake in there, and I fainted after hitting my head hard on the granite floor? Why do you hate me so much? I don’t have clean clothes to wear because at the age of 86, I cannot sit down to rub away the dirt and wash it. Why don’t you keep me clean? I am not complaining, I am just confused since the answers escape me. Why don’t you call me ‘Mom’ now? Why do you swear at me?

Son, thankyou for letting me stay with you. I am happy living where I can see you growing old and watch you pampering your child, my grandson. Thankyou for not sending me away to an old age home because I don’t want my last days to be spent alone, away from the only one I can call ‘mine’. But son never forget one thing. I am not cursing you when I say this but ‘where I am now, you will be someday’.

Your,

Mother.