On daughter Joanna's Facebook Photo Album there is a picture of our four kids with their grandmother, my mother. It bears the caption:
"I think this was taken just before or after my cousin's wedding, when we were already living in Finland and my elder bro in England. Ammachi was the loveliest grandmother u could ever hope for - much like my Dad is to his grandkids."
Joanna pays me a wonderful tribute by equating me and my attitude to our grandkids with that of my mother to hers.
This to me is one of the greatest compliments that could be paid to me, especially as Joanna knows very little about my personal relationship with my mother.
Not once, and I repeat, not once in my entire life did my mother raise her voice at me, threaten me, scold me, beat me, dishearten me because of bad school results. There was a time, in anger, that I slapped her in her face, figuratively, but yet she only continued to show me the greatest love and affection that a son can receive from his mother. I do not think any other son can say that of their mother.
And she gave her love equally to all her children.
She was there when we were sick, when we were depressed, when we were overjoyed, and always there when we needed some help.
I was only an average student, always coming in the middle ranks in school, being good in some subjects and not so good in others. She played up the good and encouraged me about those I was weak in. I was never afraid to show her my monthly or yearly report cards - and she only had nice things to say to me about them.
I remember, when my brother failed his final B.Sc. exams in Delhi University, (he never did get that Bachelor's degree) she was so concerned about how he felt, and not that he had failed. She tried to encourage him to succeed the next time, saying failures should only help one in future life.
He never did get that degree, but it did teach him never to fool around again when it came to studies. He had wasted three years of his life, and betrayed the trust his mother had put in him! Only he has had to live with that!
Ammachi was there to encourage me in my sports, my acting in school plays, my singing in the church choir, or any other endeavour I undertook. Above all, she trusted me implicitly. I never, and I can say that honestly, I never ever violated her trust in me.
When I was at her bedside 9 years ago, the night before she went into a coma, she was waiting for me to return from a trip to Bangalore. I had found out some rather unsavoury things there about my brother and sister and a nephew, who had done things behind my back to cheat me.
When I told her what I had found out, even as she was going into that coma, she gave me the best advice that I have ever received.
She told me to trust in God and that God would look after me and my family. She told me I should not ask anything from those she knew who had cheated me and my family. She hugged me and sent me to bed.
When I was woken up about 3 hours later, she was entering into a coma.
As I sat by her side for the next couple of days, I wondered whether she knew she was going away to her Lord and Saviour. I prayed with all my heart that she would come out of her coma before I left back for Finland.
God answered my prayers and she regained her full consciousness 48 hours later, on my birthday.
I was able to leave her bedside when she was back in her senses.
She bade me a farewell that I will never forget. She knew that I would never see her alive or dead again, but she told me once again to remember what she had told me that night before she went into her coma.
In the next few months when she was still alive, my brother and sister stopped me from even speaking to her on the phone. They knew that she and I knew the truth and to them that was their catastrophe.
Later events after her death showed me she knew all her children and her eldest grandson, whom she had brought up like one of her own four children, better than we knew ourselves.
What saddened her was that, despite her bringing them up, some of them had become greedy and avaricious, something she just could not understand, as she was just the opposite.
Thank you Joanna for paying me what is the richest compliment I can ever have received from anyone!
