fumbling with the words ....... finding my way.....

It has been almost 9 months since Mithi decided to go quietly . Probably it was someone up there who decided to call the little angel back home but it was the little angel herself who decided to leave so quietly , without a fuss and without causing a louder shock. She took care of her parents and took care not to bother any other people who might have found difficult to deal with it...

I always felt that i was prepared for her to let go but now i feel how wrong i was ... It was just that i could not see her bearing all the pain and wanted her pain to vanish even if it meant her life . Parting with my little angel has been like a loss i never had imagined , ever.  I want that little Mithi back who played with my hair and pinched my lips indicating me to sing for her , who was so content with her mama's hug that even the mama felt like having the world in her arms.... that world is lost , for ever..

As the clouds refuse to go and the temperatures are changing , my heart sinks to think of all those adjustments we had to do to make her comfortable in the changing weather . How i used to lift her on my shoulders and walk her in the house or in the garden ... mithi ghumne jayegi  were the words she could be happy with , her neck resting on my left shoulder and her limp legs dangling below my knee , her left arm around my neck , palms resting on my right shoulder .........how i want to hold her like that.... even like that , even when this was the last thing a mother would want to record her child's growth by how far her feet reach down my legs when i lift her on my shoulders....she was growing bigger..she had been a healthy chubby child but she had become very thin and just a skeleton in her last days......cannot forget the last time i held her , as if she had no weight and felt like a senescent leaf on my shoulders .....

She was the center of my universe for the last 9 years . I never wanted to know anything other than her medical condition , her feeding  , her bed to avoid any bed sores , her brushing and flossing teeth , sponging , bathing , combing ....... she had long braids just 3 months before she died . I snipped her hair myself as it was getting tangled and it took longer to shampoo .... I was so into that universe that i find the world outside very very different . These 9 years has been a time when the world has changed a lot and imagine a person who has been cut off from the world for that long...i had never seen a multiplex for instance . I feel lost . I feel lost in the outside world and i feel lost in the house as well , not knowing what to do without her.....

I thought i am a fairly strong person and wanted to manage it well , so well that i remember that i found myself consoling other people a few times... i changed topic when someone came to sympathize and i consoled every single person who broke down talking to me about her . I was wrong , the grief was waiting from the margins ...to take it's grip on me , to consume me.  I try and distract my mind a hundred times and yet it comes back . I pose for happy pictures and talk cheerful things so that nobody talks to me about her and the sense of loss is right there in my heart . It swells up as soon as i take my eyes away from the computer screen , or a book or the nth number of half done knitting or crocheting project . My eyes burning , head throbbing and the heart swelling up to choke me . I never felt so week in my life .... the time when her condition was diagnosed was the time when i was a worried mother , i cried a lot thinking what is going to happen .........but now it feels like questioning myself about what is left ....

I know i have to get out of it and i am working towards it . Writing these words is actually the process of working towards moving on.........i know i have to start afresh .

The difficult time when i was acting strong and yet feeling like a dump of clay is over . Still when i read IHM's blog and see her grief , all of that is revived with full force and how i used to feel ... i know there is no right or wrong way to grieve , there is nothing you must or must not do as you have no control over your emotions and  the delirious mind can lead you to utter depression . There are flashes of moments when you realize that still there is life ahead but you are so lost you never seem to know how to handle..

In the initial days , it felt like my physical self had liquidized , and i wanted to evaporate somewhere and yet at the same time there was a realization that i have to resurrect . Resurrect with a tougher material . I really felt like being in a liquid state for a very long time , as if my body was not a part of me , no appendages and no skin ...there was really no sensation of a physical being . The mind was working overtime , a throbbing head was the only part of body alive ..... new folds of the brain were being analyzed , whats and whys  and what should have been and then a delirium...........i could feel a hurried breathing and would be up to reach her for she needed me .... realizing instantly she was not here .

For an instant i would realize the physical presence of my hands as i would feel the warmth of those little hands , and then my hands would be empty ...but the touch of her skin still there...i could feel her breath on my cheeks and could not kiss her ...that's when i would feel a huge hollow consuming me from inside . A hollow stuck in my throat , another claiming my heart ............and i really wanted to evaporate...... and yet somewhere there was a sense that i have to resurrect with a tougher material , a tougher skin , tougher bones to stand up and a tougher grip to hold on what was left .....

It feels like it was just a moment ago when it happened ...... and sometimes it feels like it was ages ago .... the delirium of the mind continues in episodes and between those episodes there is a strong will towards getting up and start afresh .........it has taken time and i know it will take some more time to be able to find the right things to be done the right way.....

I found a book in the library , i often feel that the books sometimes find me instead of it being the other way  , this time it seems i have willed the book towards me .......... I had never heard about the book or the author and a black paperback caught my eyes ...The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood . She lost her 5 year old daughter to meningitis , suddenly , without a warning . And like me and like all of us she had other issues in life too to handle and it felt like she was loosing everything she had after the demise of her daughter . Her mother leads her towards joining a knitting club and she realizes after a while that we all have to learn to face our loss and our past in order to move on .

I kept crying while reading the book and Arvind was puzzled what is happening , i kept on reading the book and telling him the story and the sentiments woven into it .......... i must say the book has definitely helped me accept my loss , to an extent , it is an ongoing journey and i will have to work towards it continuously i know . I am already working hard towards it . You have to read my cheerful posts on the food blogs i write to believe this.

Are you still with me ?? still reading the weighing down words ?? 
Thank you . I had written this post some time back but never posted as i felt that i should not burden my readers with an emotionally plummeting account of my heart , but when i read this book it felt like it may lead someone else to unclog their own bottle necked emotions , like plopping up the cork and let go of the fizz .....the trapped energy which needs to be let loose must be let loose .... as i was having a word with IHM . Talking about what i feel was important and i was not finding words...i hope now it will be possible to have a way with all those painful words....may be i will be able to convert them into a soothing lotion....

I suggest this book to everybody who wants to help themselves with any kind of emotional bottleneck , any kind of disturbing past or any kind of loss . I have always felt that working with your hands is a good way to give a way to your energies , i have written about it here , any craft which needs your mind to concentrate and your hands work in a rhythmic manner . Many people find it old fashioned , but nothing is old fashioned if it gives you a sense of creation and peace of mind ..... time is not a factor as even if you do it for 10 minutes in the midnight you will feel how it works for you.... "The Knitting Circle" will give you thousand reasons to get started with knitting but you know your own reasons and your own crafts to start with.

Thank you Dear Reader for being with me all this while.....I needed a dialogue here , an honest one ..... posing for happy pictures has not helped and now it was time for an honest confession of being a weak heart ... as they say the heart breaks but it still beats .... can i make the heart beat to my own tune.......ooohh....

Ann Hood says she knits her love for her daughter everyday .... I have lost faith in prayers for now but i have immense faith in love and in the will of the mind....