Time really flies...

I sat in the car waving to my son's back... He was going in the school gate. I thought back to just a few years ago.

It was the first day of preschool. He was ready and excited. I remember the striped blue T-shirt that he wore. The deep blue back pack was on his shoulders. He really looked on with his naughty eyes, almost daring anyone who cared to accept the challenge! " Catch me if you can!"

I was a little apprehensive. Is my baby ready for the first flight? Can this fledgling really try his wings? Was I ready? Could I leave him alone with some stranger for the few hours required for each school day? Will he be ok? Will he eat? Will he be able to tell the teacher his basic needs? Water? Loo? Who would help him there?

Now I am an experienced mom! So This should not have bothered me! I have gone through this before. My daughter turned out alright. She made it- despite me... or in spite of me. So will Moksh.

But a mother's instincts are never wrong. He was excited only so long as it meant Mom was not going to work. He was to be with Mom all the time. He went with me in the car. As soon as it was time for letting him go- he held on tight.

At first his eyes simply widened. His tiny mind could not make the leap. His mother was always there for him. She could not just take him some strange place and then leave him there. SHE COULD NOT.

Then I saw some liquid begin to fill those big eyes. He was still not saying anything. It was heart-breaking. Then the tears brimmed over. A tiny cry and then he transformed. The fierceness and the tenacity with which he held tight to my hands while screaming his heart out was tearing my insides out. How could I be so cruel?

The teacher simply took his hand away. I found my hand empty. And my heart full. This teacher could not be trusted! She had not even bothered to turn a glance at me. Hell! she was not even looking at Moksh. She was only dragging him to the class. This play school was a very bad idea. My heart and my mind were doing flip flops.

Thank God for those CC cameras they had installed in the class-room. He settled in soon enough. He was good with his hands. By the time they took him to the Blocks room, he had no memory of a certain female creature perhaps scanning each monitor for evidence of her progeny's being comfortable or uncomfortable.

Once in the school, he was fine. But he never really liked being put in the bus. He never really liked the morning- it brought separation.

Now my baby has grown into a young boy who still does not feel over-enthused about school but has been programmed by the system to accept each morning's separation as just one of those evils that have to be borne. We try and fit so much into the mornings that school becomes a place to brag what he knows each day!

And my young man does know!

He knows that you have to be gentle with those younger or weaker.

He knows that you have to say thank you and sorry.

He even knows that sometimes it is ok to feel angry.

He knows that school is the place where he gets to make friends and invent games.

He knows that school is also the place that will teach him when to say no. And how.

For a five year old, is that not a bit much to already know?

As if this is not enough- he also knows he loves his mother THIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSS much.

And then he knows that no matter what- his mother, too loves him THIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSS much.

We can hug over the phone. And we can also touch over the phone... because ... you see... God gave this special thing to us- it is called the mother child bond...

As I wave at my son's back, I try to reconcile the past with the imagined future... He will soon be grown up enough not to need me to dress him up. He will be independent enough to not even bother with a backward glance and go his own way. He will soar. And maybe... just maybe... he will see the wind beneath his wings is being stirred up by the same mother who held him in her lap as a baby and then held him when he took his first tottering steps and then again each time he needed consoling because he had scraped his knees.

But in all of this past present and future, one thing that stands out clearly is the fact that I really do love him. And he loves me. And he will never have to say it... I will see it in his eyes- hear it in his breath. Just as I know he will feel it in mine. Yet... being that silly thing people call mom, i tell him tirelessly," Mokshaaaa? You know something? " He answers- gleaming eyes-" Yes! You love me verrrrry verrrrry verrrry much!" And I repeat just to satisfy myself, gleaming eyes, " Yes baby! I love you verrrrrry verrrrry much!"

I never thought I could love another human being aS much as I loved my father and my mother... and then came along my man to redefine the limits of what a human heart is capable of feeling. I knew for sure that it is not possible to love anyone any more than this when I was blessed with the little angel I call my daughter. For nearly a decade ( she is seven years older than my son) I thought it is not possible to feel any more love than I now felt! Each little gesture and each little tick was endearing. Just as I was convinced that more love was not possible, along came my son...

Human heart grows with each new experience of love and at each step you seem to be brimming over... overflowing as if more cannot be accomodated. And somehow, more and more can be taken in...

Thank you God for all the love in our lives...

Remember to tell all those you love that you do love them. Everyday. Just like I tell my children.

One day they will grow up and find this silly. The daily reaffimation of our love. Many times each day.

And then, they will have their own families and ... THEN... They will feel it and hopefully remember the good feelings it brought and hopefully... they will reaffirm in their own unique ways- how much they love all those they do love in their lives.