2021 - Fly High!
An Open Birthday Letter To My Son
on his 23rd birthday
Hey Pole Star,
From thoroughbreds - to Pinarello to - what it's going to be the next?
Twenty Three - take to the skies!! Here onwards, fly high! haha
So Pavil, it's been an incredible journey. But while you were journeying into your adulthood, for me the time stood still or actually jumped from years to years in a blink of an eye. If I could, I would turn back the hands of the clock and have you back home, especially to the age where your eyes would search for me, for all your needs and wants, and watch you grow all over again! So like a Mom.
Each day, thinking about you, I get consumed by conflicting emotions - pride, joy, melancholy, ache, sometimes even anger. Your absence, makes me go through myriad emotions all at the same time. Hard to explain and even harder to put in words. I first felt them when as a little baby I made you learn to sleep without my help. At the time, I was too tired to marvel at the beauty of your desire to sleep on me, and me alone. Once I started to recover from the sleep-deprived foggy state clouding my mind, I suddenly felt like you didn’t need me anymore. Yes, though I could catch up on my sleep, I started to miss the soft warm breaths that blew across my eyelids, the tiny nose brushing against my cheeks, the comfort of feather-like weight on my bosom, and especially the warm snuggles. If I could, I would trade anything in the world to feel them all over again! So like a Mom.
I try to steal the snuggles from you every now and again, though they’re not the same anymore. Now the hugs are more reluctant on your part, more controlled, and with the years, may even fade away altogether but they warm my heart as nothing else can. There no longer maybe the mornings when you'd want to wrap your arms around me and fill me with the warmth, like the aroma of a freshly baked cake filling the kitchen. But my longings will always remain. So like a Mom.
I know you always manage wonderfully well and have been “oh so independent” in all the new cities, you've made your home at, without ever reaching out to me for any help. But my mind keeps going back to the time you'd want to hold my hand and walk by my side. For the longest time, I'd carry you from your bed in the morning and just drop you in a bucket full of water to rouse you from your sleep. For the remaining part of the day, you'd carry yourself. haha.
Watching you grow, I used to feel both amazed & overwhelmed at how could this tiny being be so loving, so giving, so wise, so sure of his choices. Why am I missing the version of you from twenty-one years ago? Why do I miss you from a year ago? From six months ago? From a month and a half ago? I desperately try to hold on to the memories of you, all of them, dwell on what was, and savor each and every moment spent with you, reliving them in my head over and over again, dreaming of making so many more when you come back home. So like a Mom.
When we talk on the phone and I bombard you with silly questions about how you are, how's college, what's new in your life...? Or at times, when you are at a new place and I panic cause I don't hear from you... I know, it irks you cause you feel I’m treating you like a kid but check out the memes about kids not answering their mom’s calls and texts. Yes, that’s me all the way. Sorry Pav, moms tend to worry. And even though I can try not to be too interfering but it's not easy to have your heartbeats go walking around outside your body and you attempting hard not to worry about their well-being.
That's how I'll always be. Like a lone lighthouse, lighting into the night for my kids. I'll be here to watch you as you evolve into all that you are destined to be with my heart always full of love and pride. So like a Mom.
On your birthday, my wishes are - Go wherever the breath of life carries you, and shine, where ever you go. Spread the light and illuminate the world. After all, that's what your name means: PAVIL - bright & shining. Born out of the light, you are a beacon of light! I say this not as your mom, but because of how much you enrich all our lives. Be it with your smile, your simple gestures, or simply by being there. You truly are our Pole Star!
The special sensitivity you have to reach out in the most caring and quietest of ways, without even being asked, the way you take joy in simple everyday occurrences (that the rest of us take for granted), your knack of uplifting any of us out of our darkest moods with your quirky humor, speaking your truth even if we may not always be ready to hear it, having the awareness of what fits together in life and what doesn’t - it all makes you very very special Pavil.
The world needs dreamers, creators, inventors, explorers, seekers, speakers and you have a part of each of these. There is no one quite like you, I know of. You have everything inside of you that will get you to wherever you want to go and be whatever you want to be.
I feel privileged to call myself your mother. I’m thankful that fate, God, the universe, science, picked both of us to live our life together. You & Gazal are my life’s work, and I know of no other job than that of being a mom, failing at it many a time, and learning from my own mistakes. Hope my love makes up for all my mistakes and my demands - the reasonable ones and even the not so reasonable ones too. haha. So like a Mom.
Now go and enjoy this amazing age! Party hard! Eat lots of cake. Don't worry about accumulating the calories! Make it the best birthday ever! (I heard someone is celebrating the entire birthday week!!! Ahhh what fun it must be!!!!)
May this year turn out exactly the way you want it to be! Happy Birthday, Son! Love you to the moon and beyond…
Forever and always,
A Mom
