Content Warning: I am a chronically ill person functioning with limited physical and mental resources and not in a position to add appropriate content warnings. If you are not in an emotional space to read difficult things, please prioritise yourself and skip the post.
I wrote this in the
Memoir Writing Workshop a year ago. I keep postponing posting this because I don't know what to call this - an essay, poem or just the incoherent thoughts that keep clogging my brain.Mothers taking care of daughters,
Daughters taking care of mothers,
Sisters taking care of sisters,
Female psychiatric ward was buzzing!
"Is this the patient?"
Nurse asked looking at Amma curiously.
"No, I am the patient!", I replied.
Her confused stare was another stab at my wound.
I became the translator
Between Amma and the nurses.
As soon as I was shown my bed,
I curled up in it a like a baby.
Head was spinning
Flashes of buried memories
I tried to crouch more in my baby position
As if it will make me go back to the womb again.
"I feel like an orphan", I told the doctor
"Your mother is here. So why are you feeling that way", she probed
"I feel miserable with her"
"And I wish I were never born",
I added, more of an afterthought.
It took two days to accept that fate
I would circle the wide garden
As if that would keep my tangled thoughts
Arrange in a neatly organized stack.
Amma would sit on those sidewalks
And watch me as if I was the cause of all her despair
Nevertheless, I made sure that she was comfortable
I know how hard it is for her to make her needs visible
Sometimes Amma was in a trance
I had to her to be watchful while she walk
Taking care of Amma came natural to me
And I was the patient there.
We walked together to get food,
I led the way, made my way through the crowd and paid
Unlike the other patient-attender duos
Others watched us perplexed.
A mother beating up her daughter,
A mother who never stop praising her daughter,
A daughter who tried to kill her mother,
A daughter gently taking care of her mother
Amma remained silent among all these women
What was she thinking?, I don't know
She just wanted to get away, I thought
And to forget nothing like this ever happened.
Two weeks of taking care of her
As my attendant
Then came the discharge
Her relief was palpable.
I was asked to book her train ticket
I did it so promptly
Both of us wanted to get away from this misery
"Maybe it is too soon", she said
It was her decision to leave me there
Just two days after discharge
That day, early morning she came to my bed
And asked me to make space for her
She tried to hug me
I flinched as if her mere touch would burn me
She moved away to give me space
I searched in memory
whether my body had known her touch, in vain.
I carried her bags to the railway station
Waited till the train's arrival
I led her to the coach, made her comfortable
And asked her to inform me of her arrival.
The train was still on the platform
But I said goodbye and walked away
I had a lump in my throat
Sometimes we just know when it's final
It was one of such moments.
I appreciate you taking the time to read. It would help me immensely if you could buy something from my Art & Crafts store or support me in Ko-Fi or just give a shout out in any social media. Thank you!
“I had a lump in my throat” when I first read this last year and I have it now as I read it again. It’s painfully beautiful, Chembu. Thank you for being brave and sharing a part of your life with these beautiful words. Hugs.
🫂