By Lopamudra Gogoi
When I see my mother now, I see an unfathomable harmony grasping her face. It is as if the light of eternal happiness has enveloped her being. There is no pain, no complain, no grudges, no expectations and therefore no unhappiness.
Being struck by dementia at quiet an early age, she has been dealing with this illness with her head held high and I, as a daughter am so proud of her. Though the initial years have been a trauma for us as a family, but with time it has sunk as an acceptance with the reality. And since then it has been much of a relief for all of us.
But before this illness had sneaked in, I hardly cared to probe anything about dementia or similar kind of illness. Who on earth would ever think the worst would happen to themselves or their families? Nobody indeed!
But after this illness became a part of our daily life, many similar instances of people going through such situations or illness became visible or maybe we started taking them to our notice. The sufferings of those, henceforth, became more evident.
But today I do not want to talk of the pain. In fact, I no longer see it as a pain. Today it is a relief of the higher self. The more we think or consider it as a pain, the more grieved the circumstances turn out to be. It is as if the hearts
are clouded with gloom and
hopelessness forever. It is as if there is no end to it. But everything changed when the hearts and the minds started believing in the
power of the self and started appreciating the very existence of life itself.
The secular world that we live in is filled with different elements wherein we accept life at a diverse level. The day to day issues of life are what we talk of and live with. It is these issues which bother us as we carry resentments, harbour displeasures and indulge in immoral behaviour.
The debauched traits of a human like anger, expectation, greed, jealousy have so much settled in our lives that we have almost forgotten to live with our good traits. We have lost somewhere the happiness and joy of “being just alive”. The world around us has become a pitfall filled with stress, distrust, dishonour and disbelief.
But there is an unknown relief when, in such a chaotic nature of our lives I see my mother’s unabated happy face unperturbed by any kind of situations, be it death in the family or a happy moment of the family. Her face lights up on encountering anybody on her way be it a human or even a sparrow that adorns our balcony every morning. She would greet an unknown face as warmly as a known one and talk her heart out in a most affectionate tone. It’s just that her talk would make no sense to the listeners.
She needs no reason to laugh, she needs no hugs to feel loved, she needs no one to talk to and she needs no material things to make her happy. She has just chosen to stay happy in the most challenging of times.
When at times I look at her, I just wish that if we too could be happy for no reasons just like her. Every now and then we look for situations and reasons outside ourselves to be happy. The moment any situation does not work the way we expect them to be, we become miserable and dejected.
But my mother is an exception. She has all the reasons in
this world to be contented and
gratified. Thanks to her illness. Thanks to dementia that she has found eternal happiness being just the way she is.
A complaining heart leads the most miserable life. Let’s be appreciative of each and everything that we have around us. Let’s start noticing the beauty around us and find happiness in the smallest of things. This is how the human bonds would further get strengthen which is the need of the hour. Once the human heart is filled with appreciation and gratitude, this would become the best place to live.
(The author is a Mumbai-based travel blogger and costume stylist)