I have realised that the intensity of my pain is directly proportional to my love for my mother.
The more pain you’re in, the more intensely you long for, or call out for, your mother.
The moment something hurts, I stop being an adult. I begin calling out her in multiple languages and occasionally in what can only be described as toddler dialect.
“Aaaaiiiii!”
“Aai ga!”
“Maaaaaa!”
“Oh mumma!”
And then, once the crisis has passed and dignity returns, a calm little “Ma.”
I do wonder why I never scream “Papa.” Even experimentally, it doesn’t feel right. Perhaps fathers are for solutions and mothers are for existential emergencies.
On a more serious note, today was a good day.
Two weeks ago, I couldn’t lift my leg at all. Today, I lifted it with a one-kilogram weight attached to it. A tiny victory by most standards, but a significant expansion of my threshold after 76 hours and 45days.
I often wonder how I got so lucky to be surrounded by such remarkable doctors, both here in Bangalore and back home.
Most of them are in their late thirties, yet they carry an astonishing amount of grit, patience, and faith in the human body’s ability to begin again.
#bangalore #postsurgery #determination #hope #injury