A little planning goes a long way!

It happened one rainy Sunday morning, fifteen years ago.  My brother and I were lazily finishing our breakfast. It was upma- not our favorite. It looked like a gloomy day with no hope even for a bit of sunshine. 

Suddenly we heard our mother calling out to us from the front yard. We looked up at each other. It was not her usual purpose filled voice.  The one that is used to check on us about the status of our breakfast especially when it was upma or the one that indicated we had been watching way too much TV or the one that pointed to chores that needed doing. It sounded more like a painful cry. A cry of shock. We ran to the living room and looked through the window only to see our mother dressed in her pink floral nightie lying face down on the ground trying hard to crawl towards the front steps. It took me more than a moment to realise she had been hurt. My reflex has always been slow. I opened the side door and looked in horror.

One moment you are about your day, making your coffee and singing to your plants. The next you twist your ankle, slip and bang you knee on to an architectural detail on the wall tearing your ligaments into a million threads.  If it wasn't a Sunday, she would have been lying there till someone noticed.

I don’t know how, but my brother and I managed to help my mother up the sofa. I had never seen my mother cry in physical pain before. She probably did that last when my brother was born. It was horrible. The one person you depend on for everything is suddenly depending on you. With my dad slogging it off miles away in the Middle East and unfortunately not able to come immediately, we had to (gladly)depend on neighbours and close family to get her to the doctor.

Suddenly everything was different. I had to grow up. I was 

in my early 20s. But you can be in your early 20s and still not have to worry about growing up. I had to pack tiffin for my kid brother which he never ate. It was not how mummy made it. We had to arrange for some extra house help- a maid who was banished from our uncle’s house and therefore deal with the subsequent wrath that comes with hiring the enemy. I had to make sure my brother was studying. I had to make sure the dogs were fed. We had to arrange for another lady to stay with my mother at the hospital. We had to arrange food to be cooked and then take two buses to get to the hospital. Her surgery was on September 12, 2001. The newspaper was full of the Twin Tower attack. I had to convince my mother she was fine and that the world was not coming to an end. I had to go buy the medicines. I had to pay the bills. And a hospital is not a place anyone wants to spend. Especially someone just fresh out of college and ready to escape to a Bangalore MNC.

My mother was in a long and itchy cast for the next 6 months and I had to help her like she helped me when I was a baby. There was bath time, potty time, pee time.  I really don’t know how I did it. But I realised that when a crisis happens, everybody tunes in mentally and physically and somehow you get through it. Everybody finds the strength.

My dad called every day more than once. And though there were moments when I felt annoyed and angry that he was not there, or did not come. I realized later than he had already empowered us for a time like this. Without being there, he was there. He had taken accidental insurance for each one of us. He was spending his life alone far away to put food on our table. With his foresight, he was empowering us for unexpected and unwelcome situations. And we got back everything we had to spend as part of my mother's surgery and other medical expenses and more.

We never really understand our parents until we become parents ourselves. And I think it is when we begin to understand our parents is when we have really started to grow up.  

And now and then when we deal with with planned and unplanned situations it is good to be reminded that love and family endures and a little planning can sometimes go a long way. 

And yes there are insurance policies from a good companies that is worth every penny.

#KhudKoKarBuland  #BeEmpowered #Planforthefuture

Here is a video that says it all :