Roles

Is your phone fully charged? I asked her, looking up from my laptop where I had been trying to finish a brain numbing presentation. She was standing at the door of my study, wearing a shiny outfit she bought last week when we went shopping. She had been unwell so I hadn’t let her go out alone since a few months, and finally today, she was going out with one of her friends for dinner. I can’t say I was not anxious, but you know, one has to learn to let go. Make sure you eat properly, I told her, and don’t drink anything cold. Also no sugary foods ok? I hope you didn’t forget your medicine? Its in your bag right? Take one of each right after you finish dinner. Text me after you take them okay? I still wasn’t done with my barrage of questions. Who is picking you up? Oh she’s already downstairs. Whatsapp me her number just in case? And what time are you coming back home? Don’t be late, and make sure you text me when you reach the restaurant. okay?

Now I could see she was getting impatient. So I knew I had to stop this incessant questioning. Alright, I told her, Goodbye mom, Have fun. Say hi to neeta aunty from me.
Goodbye Beta, I’ll see you later, she said, and then she left.

Yes. That was my mother being questioned.

But these are also questions I have been asked by her. In the exact order. When I was going for a sleepover at 16, or when I was going for a night out at 22. But this time, she was 65. And I was asking her these questions.

You see, I had become a mother to my mother. This started many years ago, while I was in college, and my mom started showing symptoms of depression. This was when mental health was not part of the discourse so we as a family soldiered on for a long time before she got any help. But very early on, I learned to pick up after her, be a companion to my dad when she could not, handle financial and household matters and all the rest of it.

Honestly it sucked. She was draining me, she was selfish and I had so many unfulfilled needs. I was angry at her and at life so I always resisted the role I was handed - of being her primary caregiver. Why do I not have a mother like other mothers. Why did I have to parent myself so soon? Why does she call me for the tiniest of her problems? I lashed out, I cried, and at times I shut her out. I hated her.

There was this one day, she came to me crying, because a relative had been mean to her. So innocent, so vulnerable, looking at me helplessly like a little child to solve this for her. I felt a rush of tenderness and the strong desire to protect her from harm, almost maternal. From that look of hers, my resistance started disspating, and I found myself accepting, that the roles has been reversed.

Mothering my mother is an uphill journey. But she is mine to take care of. At times I will be fallible but I don’t resist it anymore. I see it as my way of paying back for bringing me to this life, for being a good mother till she had the ability to be one. Its the circle of life.