There is a customer of my branch, an old lady, a sweet and gentle soul always full of cheer and kind words, a little waif of a person, so small and delicate she actually looks like a fragile china doll. She invokes such a protective feeling in me and for some odd reason she has taken a great liking to me and insists that I must take care of all her banking needs even though I am in another department and have no reason to do so. She never forgets to send me a cake for Christmas or Easter and has me forever indebted to her for all the love and affection she showers on me.
There is something strange I have noted about her ever since the time I have known her and this has also been a cause of concern for me. Every single time that she visits the branch she has one or the other bone broken! It is either the right leg, the left one, the wrist or the elbow..it goes on but I have never seen her whole and well. I have often suggested that she should visit a good ortho to have the problem examined but she laughingly passes it off as 'the side effects of old age' coupled with the mishaps resultant of living alone (she is a widow).
Today, like all other times, she called (to confirm if I was free and available) and then dropped in to my office. One look at her and I knew she was in excruciating pain, so as I escorted her to a chair, I jokingly asked her, which one is it this time. Unlike her past answers, this time her reply was subdued as she said it was her ribs. Like all the previous occasions, I again entreated with her to visit a good doctor about the fragility of her bones, even offering to accompany her, if required. And then the unexpected happened - she started to cry!
I was stricken by remorse that maybe it was my casual approach to her ailment that caused the reaction and I tried to comfort her but it was as if a dam had burst. After a while, as she calmed down, she said words which ring in my ears even now; she told me that all the accidents of the past times, all those broken bones, had been caused- not by a deficiency or physical weakness- but was the handiwork of her daughter(!) who lived with her and was a spinster, who blamed the mother for her single status and thrashed her mercilessly at the slightest provocation.
It was at that moment I wished, albeit selfishly, not that she was elsewhere, safe and comfortable, but, that I could have been elsewhere or someone else. I wished it were possible to 'unhear' those words because today I lost my ability to remain impassioned and offer logical advice in the face of her reality. What solace can one offer to such a mother who only prays every single day 'that her own child would take what she wants but atleast leave her capable of fending for herself in her old age'. How does one offer logic to a helpless old lady who waits on her only child despite her broken bones, despite the pain and the injury, in the fear that she may be inflicted with even more, should she be caught slacking her pace. She, who has so much of love and affection to shower on a stranger, who speaks a few kind words, is treated like dirt by her own progeny? There are those who pray to the almighty to be blessed with a child and here, before me, was a woman who beseeched the lord each day, for deliverence from one...
As she got up to leave, I was numb and though I escorted her to her cab, she has stayed on in my heart and always will...
1 comment:
Very touching
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