Yes, the boy whom I was speaking to was my son. He slept here, in the hospital last night. My mother in law is hospitalized. She suffered from a heart attack three days back. So my husband, my son and I are taking turns to stay here at the hospital. Yes, she is fine now. The doctors will probably discharge her within a couple of days, well in time before Diwali.
A warm companionable silence follows for a while, each one lost in their own world of thoughts and emotions…
I feel sad to see my son you know. He slept on a hospital couch all through the night yesterday. I had given him a pillow and a blanket to keep himself warm. He was awake well before I came to the hospital. The waiting area is full of people who are waiting for the doctors to visit the patients in the ICU. He can see all this. Yet, it did not strike my son that he should fold his blanket and set aside his pillow to make room for others to sit. Habits are so difficult to break…
It is the same at home too. His room is always in a mess. He does not even understand the meaning of responsibility. I am a divorcee. And I guess I was desperate to make this second marriage of mine work. We adopted this child when he was three years old. We treat him and think of him as our son. The woman who gave birth to him passed away soon after he was born. He was adopted by another woman but that woman too passed away when this boy was 3 years old. So we adopted him after that.
He is very good at heart. But I never had any control over his upbringing. My mother in law would pass comments whenever I asked him to do any household chores or clean up his room. She would say, “Why should children do any kind of work? What are grownups for?”
I could never retaliate to anything that she said. I guess I just wanted to hold on to the second chance that I got at being married. My husband is a decent man but the main control in the house rests with my mother in law. I call her the “inspector” of our house.
I work hard all through the day. Even if we do go out to visit our relatives in the evening, I cook a fresh meal for dinner right from scratch within 30 minutes, after we return home. We never eat out. I grind all the masalas and flours at home. Yet, no matter how good a meal I make, she is never completely satisfied.
She will not say she did not like the food I cooked. She will not eat it. It’s as simple as that. She will eat a few khakras, drink a glass of milk and go to bed. She will not say anything. I just have to infer that she does not like that particular dish and whenever I make that dish, I then make it a point to cook something else for her.
But these are things that I have to live with. I worry a lot for my son. Marriages break up for the silliest of reasons these days. And this boy of mine does not even lift a finger to help around the house. Who will marry him? Even if we do find someone to marry him, will the marriage work? Which girl will tolerate this kind of irresponsibility?
Yes, I agree. Maybe you have a point. I should have been strict and firm with my son. I should have insisted that he help around at home. But believe me; I really had no say in the matter. I would have incurred the wrath of my mother in law. Maybe I am very scared of her. Perhaps I was always more focussed on making our marriage work. So I chose to keep quiet even over things that were really important for the child’s character development.
But my fears are justified too. And my fears are very real to me. Often they do overwhelm me. You have to live with a person like her to know how tough it actually is.
The day she suffered from an attack, she woke up at her usual time and had her breakfast too. She then complained of a tingling sensation in her left arm and chest pain. So we immediately gave her a tablet and asked her to keep it under her tongue. She felt better after a while. We insisted that she get hospitalized immediately.
But she does what she wants to. All the time. She went out to the Derasar at the usual time, did the darshan, chatted with all her friends and returned home at her usual time too. The Derasar is quite far from our house. She goes there by walk every day. She then watches TV from 10 in the morning till 10 in the night. The living room is her domain after that. We all have to do all our other work in the other rooms. No one even thinks of disturbing her when she watches TV.
She felt fine after that. At least that is what she said. But my husband and I were quite anxious. She had already suffered from a heart attack a few years back. So that evening, my husband insisted that she meet the heart specialist in this hospital. It is quite close to our house. She refused. Point blank.
But my husband was not willing to take any chances. He called our family doctor and asked her to visit our home in the evening. My mother in law gets along well with her. So she agreed to get a routine heart check up done at her clinic.
We were right. There were quite a few changes in her ECG compared to her earlier one. So our family doctor asked her to get admitted in this hospital immediately and is keeping her under medical supervision for a few days. She is feeling fine now. She eats normally too.
But I am amazed at her mental strength. She too knew that she had suffered from a heart attack. Yet, she went out and did all the things that she normally does. I have never argued with her. Neither will she entertain any of my suggestions. So I don’t even bother to do so.
I should have no complaints. We live in a decent house in a decent locality. My husband too is a good man and my son is good in his own way. Yet I often feel I am failure as a mother. I could not mould my son into a responsible human being. I suppose we all will have some regrets in our lives. I just hope and pray that my son does not suffer because I failed in my duty as a mother.