By Geetika Chumble
“Don’t need your mom, anymore!?!”
I remember the first time I became a mother,
not in the delivery room, but
Long before that,
In that quiet, invisible moment
when I whispered,
“I’m ready to have you.”
And you, my darling daughter,
chose me too.
But then, oh! You didn't just
sneak in or quietly slipped out.
You came screaming,
Loud like a thunder,
making me cry bucketloads,
Yet radiant & shining,
a firework wrapped in wrinkly skin,
My first small wonder.
My world became brighter.
As I entered an untamed terrain,
Your strong innocence
spilling into my life,
like the scent of earth, after the first rain.
You sang, you gurgled,
And tumbled and crawled
Speaking the language of the soul
Even before your tongue
knew a single word.
There were no lessons, no maps
Just a gut feeling guiding us,
You were the new 'Dawn'
I'd been waiting for.
The hush before light, the breath before a yawn,
And from that moment I was
Transformed.
You taught me that parenting
Wasn’t neat, & I was scared.
But I learnt it was sacred,
As you made me awake.
From you, I learned how to listen
Not just with ears, but with skin.
To anticipate a cry before it came.
To soothe, to sway, to surrender.
I became a woman with new eyes,
braiding patience into chaos,
in your scattered toys,
and peace in bedtime stories
And sleep cut short by your cries.
But I learnt to follow my guts
Like my angel guardian's voice.
You taught me how humming
was more effective than words,
How stillness could speak
Louder volumes.
The soft weight of your head on my chest
taught me more grace
Than any scripture could ever have,
I knew my prayers
Had you as the answer.
I learned how to dance
even with swollen feet and knees sore.
You made me want to be more,
not for the world, but for us two.
And the way your tiny fingers curled
Around mine,
As if asking me to be there,
To hand-hold you through life,
I promised without a word,
To always guide, and love you,
watch over you and have you back,
No matter what you did,
You chose, or where you went.
Though I didn’t know it then,
You’d outgrow all my fears so soon,
And in your strength, I’d find my own,
Your protection, through the years,
As if you’d been holding me all along,
Diluting my pain, wiping my tears.
And then opened another chapter
As came You, 'my special boy',
into my physical space,
who had whispered to me earlier,
in another life, another form,
“I will come as your son.”
And hey, you kept more than
Your promise
You came in as a 'Blessing'.
You were gentler. Less fussy.
Quieter in rhythm, easier in spirit.
You slept longer, asked less,
Tumbled headfirst, laughed,
No stress.
Then your little, frequent illnesses
Taught me other lessons.
All that I knew as a mother
Didn’t seem to be of much help
and I started to learn and train
Slowly, from a deeper place again.
I sang lullabies through your fevers,
I read stories, to put you to sleep.
My heart became heavy,
Every time any one of you
Coughed or sneezed.
But the biggest lesson I learned
Was that healing is not just
About visiting doctors,
And breaking fevers,
It’s about hope, and faith,
Being built every day,
When things don’t go your way.
And you made me kneel
not in exhaustion,
But in prayer.
You both taught me that
Falling was never a Failure,
And every stumble was a lesson.
And the first steps are never
Just about balance,
but they’re all about courage
And resilience!
You taught me the real joy
of a crooked crayon drawing
Outshining all medals I had ever won.
Real love was clapping the loudest
when you failed learning a new skill,
And cheering not just the triumph
But for trying
Again and again, and again.
And in each of your milestones,
And every bruised knee,
with you both learning to live,
I saw 'her'...
My own mother.
I saw what I couldn’t see as a child,
the silent strength,
the invisible weight,
the tireless unfinished jobs,
And for the first time,
I didn’t just understand her,
I became her.
Now, when you call me
to ask if this melody you composed
feels honest,
or how to respond calmly
in a difficult conversation…
As if my insight or advice
Still makes a difference in your world,
I smile.
Because it makes me feel,
still useful, still needed,
still like your anchor, or your keel.
And between those calls,
I look up into the space,
And call out to my mom, ask
To ask for a validation,
“Ma, main theek kar rahi hun na?”
So tell me, who decides
When you're too old
To need your mom, anymore?
At twenty? At forty?
I know not even at sixty.
No, never.
Not even if you have a hundred kids
Of your own.
In fact, you just learn to love her
Even more,
In newer, deeper ways.
Though I still live in the same house,
Something feels different now!
The walls that once echoed
with your laughter & footsteps
Now just hum with a silence.
The room you called home
Still carries your warmth & tunes,
And yet...
You left,
only to become everything
I ever prayed you would.
And I’m proud.
So proud.
But some evenings,
I find myself missing that home
where you both still lived…
And I waited,
For you to return
like the sun to its sky,
or a bird finding its branch once more!!!
Love you Sehar, and Mehar!
On Mother’s day 11.05.25