Moment
When they both lay asleep, separated for the first time in fifty five years. She on a state of the art hospital bed, no expenses spared. He, on a narrow and uncomfortable little sofa. It had become a habit to check in on her every half hour or so. That morning, I saw funeral masks in both their faces. I saw how each of them would look in the moment of death. The hollow cheeks as they drew in breath, the slack mouth as they let it go. It was a realisation that gave comfort rather than alarm. Five days later, it was her turn to leave. I watched as her failing heart gave out. One breath, another, then nothing. The agitation of the last weeks, the letting go of all rational thought as the tumour crept over that formidable brain, the giving in to the innermost grievances and bitternesses, finally spewing out all the rage and wrongs, all these were past. The face, so familiar, became that of a stranger. I’m grateful to have been alone at the moment I let my mother go. Or did she leave me?
Tears dripping down my face as I tried to feed my baby for the first time. I wanted desperately to be alone with him. Instead, the room was filled with women. Matron, nurse, mother in law. My shoulders hunched protectively over him as I shut them all out, their well meaning advice and selfish demands receding into the back of my anaesthesia dulled brain. He was wiser than me even in his first hours of life. The moment when his eyes found mine was our first real moment together. His body relaxed into mine. You’ve got this, his eyes said, and then those beautiful long lashes curved down, his little fists unfurled like petals as he got on with the job of teaching me to be a mom.
The second time, I watched as my heart beat outside my body, lying in the ventilator in the NICU. This was an unprepared for moment, not yet anticipated, certainly not with the accompanying complications. I watched over my heart for three days until he took pity on me and decided to meet life head on. This son showed me hidden depths – of courage and resilience, of gritted teeth and what it means to be terrified and defiant all at once.
Life begins and ends with well defined moments. The moments in between are harder to recall and acknowledge as important. The exact moment love really settles in for the long haul is so hard to remember. Was it when he rocked a colicky baby to sleep, night after night? The year I knew that finally, home was wherever he was, not somewhere far away in a fantasy? Or is it a moment that replays everyday, in a myriad gestures and actions? Steadfast, simple, strong. Yes, with this man, that moment is every day.
Even harder to pin down is the moment love dies. Is it when a friendship of a lifetime finally has nothing left to say? Other moments have left a mark – that one when everlasting awful grief gentled into memory. Or the moment when I realised life would never again be what I’d known, never imagining then that instead, it would become a constant endless thankless search for an ending or a new beginning. The moment of first love, the one it took years to come to terms with, a constant presence in my life, but one that has now receded into the past, as it should have done years ago.
More recently, the moments that have come to matter are mundane ones, made memorable simply because I have learnt to open my eyes and ears. A few days ago, an unusual visitor came to drink water on my balcony. A sharp one toned call, a tail that fanned out every few seconds. The white throated fantail is now a regular, its distinctive flight behaviour sending it head long into the air before it settles for a brief moment. The sparrows watch warily, they don’t give too much importance to these here today gone tomorrow visitors. I watch, enthralled, and wonder once again why it took me so long to notice the birds that arrive through the year on my balcony. The moments when the cool breeze, the hot sun, a blue sky define my day as much as the things I’ve set out to achieve or overcome. When the new mango leaves or badam buds outside my window are as much a source of wonder as my eighteen year old’s cuddle, immediately followed by sage advice on looking after a sore back.
Be in the moment, is the mantra of our times. For once, a mantra that makes sense to this cynic. Look up, look out, open your senses, open your mind. The old truths are still true but their time is gone. Let some light in to the dark corners of the heart. Air out those musty ganglia and neurons, give them a work out. Be a hallmark card: Live. Love. Laugh.