Five Things I Learned From My Son

Writing life, one prompt at a time.

I often forget that I have anything to learn from him. I make the mistake of believing that I, as his mother must do all the teaching and he, the learning. But in moments when he catches me off guard, suspended in spaces between hating him a little and missing him a lot, I remember all that he has taught me.

I am sitting here in a zoom room full of stranger friends as hideous music from his stinky room reaches me. He feels far away.

To comfort myself I go over five things that I have learned from my son-

1)    It is okay to bite away your anger after an ugly fight. It is even possible. My son teaches me this when he returns to say goodnight after walking away in a temper. “Ladiye mat. Main sirf Khudahafiz karne aaya hun.”(don’t fight with me, I have only come to say goodnight.)

2)    Sometimes it takes an entire life to learn how to love someone the way they need to be loved and not how we think they should be loved. My son teaches me how to love him little by little. In his opinion producing spicy food at the most inappropriate times is a good start.

3)    I learn that hugs are necessary for life. “Eight hugs a day, Amma, no matter how much we fight. That is our quota.” I learn that quotas must be met.

4)    When he pesters me, I learn that squished somewhere between his anger and my reaction to it, lies my fear. When I attempt to control this fear, hurt arrives with sharp tongues and slicing words. My son teaches me that hurt need not be permanent. He allows me to apologize often.

5)    I learn from my son the magic of butter sweet words. Especially in lean times. “You cannot ever be so angry with me Amma, that you refuse to feed me with your own hands. That can never happen.” I learn from him that such nevers can save drowning mothers.

6)    In celebration of such rescues, I have allowed myself a sixth thing. “Amma when I say *hug do, you have to reply with hug diya.” For everyone who knows what that means in Hindi, I learn from him that potty jokes never grow old.

       

   *hug in Hindi means shit and hug diya will literally mean I shat!

This mini essay was written in response to a prompt in the

Ochre Sky Stories

Writing Circle mentored by

Natasha Badhwar

and

Raju Tai

.

p.s: When I was looking for photos to post, I realised that all the nice ones with my son are from when he was a preteen or younger. Clearly, teenage is allergic to photos.

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