Share it with your friends!

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The goodbyes that are painful...

If I refer to all the females in my family (including me) as ‘drama queens’, it would be an understatement. We strongly believe that if a daughter to goes on a picnic she may never come back, or buying a two wheeler to a son is like gifting him death. So you get an idea. Every single thing is blown out of proportion and every event like marriage, birthday, and graduation is laced with tears and filmy dialogues and thus dampened. I grew up in such a fiercely loving yet slightly dramatic home, and even though I am way better in terms of drama, I seem to carry traces of what was generously bestowed upon me.

However I was married into a family where people are not as dramatic as us. Goodbyes here are more matter-of-fact and met with more smiles than tears. So my belief that my family had the most complex DNAs which made them brutally sensitive and that they were the first of its kind to have ever walked the earth only got stronger. I reach for the tissue during any movie that has got anything remotely to do with emotions. I fought tears and lost when my son got vaccination shots. The first two weeks of my son’s first daycare was when I ran short of words and tears or even breath. However I was strong enough to hold my own and not broadcast it to the rest of the family for obvious reasons.

This morning I dropped my son at the playschool when I heard loud wails from outside. A boy, around four, had been enrolled and it was his first day there. Two people had to stop him from running to his mother, who walked away hesitantly with her two younger kids. The child refused to pay heed to any act of consolation, and got too wild and loud to handle. Other children including my own stood perplexed and helpless.  We slowly left, even though my heart went out to the boy, who was evidently kept home till that day. As I stepped outside, the mother waited with a miserable look on her face. 
She asked me,’ Is he still crying?’. 
I said ‘Yes’.

She went up to her car, placed the youngest baby carefully on a car seat, fastened the seat belts for the other child and got on to the driver’s seat. 'Wow', I said. 'She must be the iron lady or something'. As we started the car to go to office I took one last look of the mother who was still in her car. She held a ball of tissues and was crying profusely. She kept wiping her eyes and slowly rested her head on the steering wheel. 

My heart melted.
The mother. Her undying love. Care.  Tears.  Worries. 

 You do not call that sensitive. It is what mothers are all about. 

I think I misunderstood my family.  


21 comments:

  1. True :) ....
    though my family is not a dramatic one ....
    :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh man, I am exactly like this. Sometimes it is so hard to control tears. Even when someone is narrating an emotional incident, I get watery eyes.
    Although I wish I wasn't like this. No control over emotions whatsoever!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Me too. Even though I wish I wasn't like that, it is believed to be okay to cry. Although it is embarrassing when it gets uncontrollable.

      Delete
  3. Yes.. That's what mothers are all about.. Even I got married into a family where people are not as dramatic as they were in my family.. However each one of us have different ways of reacting to different situations.. Even I have tried to show less of my dramatic tantrums since I got married.. But I guess this is the way.. Lovely heart warming post.. Keep writing..! :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right.. it is particularly difficult for girls to get in sync with the emotional quotient of the husband's family..
      Thank you:-)

      Delete
  4. i come from a similar family and i can totally relate this post to the time when i first went to a residential college. it was the hardest time ever. very nicely written post!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. Staying away from home for the first time when I had to stay at the hostel was the hardest time for me as well..
      Thank you.!!

      Delete
  5. Mine is just the contrary :P I cry so easily while my family doesn't display emotions that easy :P Good byes are said with smiles and then wept upon silently :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thats good for u ! It is good to have people around who are stronger !

      Delete
  6. Awww, a drama queen I am but for all the wrong reasons. It takes a lot to make me cry and good-byes are not one of them. I did not even cry on my wedding day when I was bidding bye to my parents.

    Strong or emotionless, this is how I am. I do feel the pain inside, but some how tearing up doesn't happen.

    I'm weird :/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I cry when the heroine of some movie is dying. I did not when I was saying goodbye to my parents on my wedding day! I did not feel like I am ditching them forever to be with this guy, tahts why. They will still continue to be my parents and I will visit them whenever I want to, right..? Good that you dint cry either ! There is no need to !

      Delete
  7. I'm a softie where movies are concerned... in real life, have had to harden up the ol' heart to keep on going :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your heart is level headed! Or whatever that means. (I told u no? My English is the worst !)

      Delete
  8. The post brought tears to my eyes when i remembered how i was a mental wreck the first month I left my kiddo at day care. I was thinking that i am the worlds worst mother to do such a cruel thing. He still doesnt like going but i have got used to his tears.. :(
    Nice Post!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know exactly what you mean. It is a hear ache. And it aches until we see them in the evening. That is also how it should be. Tears are fine...the experience is priceless. Although there is always a guilty feeling, I am sure in the long run we will be happy that we did this. :-)

      Delete
  9. I don't know, I think emotion comes in different proportions to all. Perhaps it might just be the case of it running strong through your bloodline. But Mothers are like that, and the fact that your heart sank when you entrusted your son in someone else's care, you too are of the same pack, mothers. I think this connection of mother and child is something to be proud of :)

    Cheers,
    Blasphemous Aesthete

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right on, BA. We cannot equate the mother-child sentiments on the same line as we react to other situations in life. Welcome back..:-)

      Delete
  10. Ohh! Those school days.. Not for me though. I somehow (I still dont know how) enjoyed those initial playschool / nursery days.. Maybe the thought of meeting lots of kids of my age in a single room was enough for me.. :D

    Mothers are mothers for that same reason! :) Nice post..

    ReplyDelete

Spread the word!