A few days ago I was talking to my aunt. It was one of those days when she felt like sharing and I felt like just listening. I really felt it was such a blessing to able to just hear her.
At one point she told me how she is humbled every time when she meets a monk or a sanyasi and they would insist on touching her feet saying that a mother has the highest stand in the order of the world. She said, “some of them are even older to me and I feel like I should be touching their feet but they don’t let me. I don’t know what karma have I done to deserve this blessing that such amazing people would come to our home, that I would have the opportunity to make food for them and then they would in turn ask for my blessing. I am just an ordinary, very worldly mother.”
When she said that she was just an ordinary, very worldly mother; I started thinking if there is anything ordinary about being a mother? Is there anything close to worldly about being a mother. Mothers are superheroes, mothers are Godly.
My aunt had further shared how she sometimes feels guilty about not always being there for one of her children. That maybe she loved one more than another. That made me think how when I was a kid I used to think my mom loved my sister more that me, and I’m sure that my sister thought the other way. But now I know that it is just not possible which is what I had shared with my aunt that maybe she was different with both of them but did she really believe that there was any difference in her love for them?
I am not a mother yet but from my relationship with my sister’s kids I have had a chance to experience just a fraction of this beautiful being. When my sister had her first child, I thought I could never love a kid more than Nandini. She was the baby of the family and she had my heart from the moment I lifted her tiny body in my arms. 4 years later Arjun was born and I knew there is no way I can choose between the two of them. I loved them equally and that’s when I realised there is no way that mom loved either of us any less or more. That it was just not possible.
Her love for us is infinite and how is one infinite love more or less than another infinite love? There is just no way that she differentiated between us. Yes, she is different with both of us and that is because we both are different and have different needs but her love for both us is same. I’m amazed when I see my sister juggling between a very naughty Arjun and a very calm Nandini. It must have been same for our mom with both of us being such striking personalities. But I see it in both my mother and my sister and all the mothers I know that their love for their children is something beyond worldly, something beyond ordinary. It is unconditional, unlimited, unbiased and selfless.
I bow down to all mothers for nurturing me and for nurturing this world.
Lime 'n' Lemony 