nature at its best...

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

crossing 'borders'....

my son can now cross the street across my house....an achievement not just for a child who is all of ten,but also for his mother who was full of anxiety till she could let her mind allow him to do 'it' all by himself.....

"how long will you hold on to him radhika?"...my husband says matter of factly....he understands...he is the 'father'...the more 'adventurous' of the two i guess...but for me it was like letting him out into this 'big bad world' all by himself for the first time...

once he accomplishes this ,there will be no looking back...i felt...

did i have the same feeling when he first drank milk through the bottle and was no longer dependent on me?

did i have the same feeling the day he stopped crying in school and no longer looked for my familiar face outside the class?

did i have the same feeling when he rode the bicycle without my help for the first time?

did i have the same feeling when he could read 'goodnight stories' all by himself before kissing me goodnight?

for me he has crossed borders when he has done each of these seemingly easy and routine growing up tasks...every parent has the same feeling...

soon he will cross borders known-unknown to me...some that he will inform me of...others that he will prefer not to inform...i will still be standing at the side of the footpath waiting to see him arrive at the other end 'safe'...

children across the world take up this crossing borders as a passion and i wonder how their mothers cope up with it...

swimming across the english channel,climbing mount everest,earning and learning in foreign lands,wandering through wilderness to get the perfect photograph...all this and much more...their mothers sleep soundly every night when their offsprings are going through these borders everyday....

and i salute the mothers who let their child stay put on political borders...waiting to cross the border of life eagerly, so that we all can sleep in tranquility...

when i think of this i feel happy and hopeful...my son has 'finally' crossed his first 'border'....

4 comments:

Vibha said...

very simple..honest..yet profound. Depicts eternal,global feelings of a MOTHER..loved it

Aarati said...

Hey very very nice.. but you know what.. each and every time Sayali crosses the border my heart skips at least once ...I guess this is a global feelings of a mother and Vibha has rightly said

aditi said...

i had this feeling, radhika, today as rishi climbed for the 1st time the stairs of his primary school. from a very shelled environment that he is in now, i felt he was to take head on into this big bad world! and he was so excited....oblivious to maybe all that is still to come his way..and that is why!!! a seemingly minor incident, made me realise that, yes, rishi crossed one border today!

Suneeta said...

Yes, Radhika. Letting them 'cross borders' means 'letting go' and a certain amount of detachment... Hard but necessary lesson :-) Lovely to meet again.
Suneeta