Today is what would be my mother's 73rd birthday. I didn't even realize it when I woke up this morning...but when I glanced at the date on my computer screen at work, it struck me.
She passed away 15 years ago, the "C" word, she was only 58. But she wasn't just a mother to myself and my brother, she was the matriarch of our entire extended family in this country.
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| Mount Annapurna in the Himalayas |
Anna, her name was Annapoorna, sanskrit for 'the giver of food and nourishment', was exactly that. She thought nothing of having 100 people over to our house for dinner parties, and she did it often. I grew up in a home where we always had family and friends over for dinner, and regularly had huge gatherings where my mother was the hostess, chef and entertainment. She was an accomplished Indian Carnatic music singer, and after she served everyone a multi-course extravagant gourmet dinner, she would then sing for everyone into the night. She was always the last to want to leave a party, she was always laughing, she always found the humor and positive in everything, she loved having fun and she loved life. This was my upbringing...I was raised by a woman who felt that life was to be celebrated to the fullest.
She was an amazing woman. She was strong, she was smart, she was talented, she was beautiful, she was funny. She was not afraid.
She would have been 73 today, yet I never knew my mother as an old woman, she left us at such a young age.
My children were 7 and 5 at the time, my niece and nephew not yet born. My kids remember her, but they were still so young, though the last words she spoke were to my son in the hospital, "Go home and be happy."
Today I have been reflecting, and I often wonder what my mother would think of my life path and journey, and what words she would have for me now...I do not nearly possess her strength and courage.
And yet, I am my mother's daughter.
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