The she, and her power source

One of the best things about yoga asanas is that it can be practiced at any age. My mom, aged over 60, starts her day early at 4.30 AM with some simple yoga asanas and feels calm and gets a fresh start in the morning. After preparing tea/coffee for others, she takes a cup of Horlicks, her favourite for the past several years, that help her rejuvenate her energy. After breakfast preparation, she enjoys sending us one by one to school or office. She sits relaxed and reads the newspaper for some time. After doing cloth washing and preparing lunch, she gets a plenty of time for a few episodes of some TV serial and a good nap. Her play time starts with the fruit juice when my nephews return at 3 PM and 4 PM. And then full of talking and playing with everyone before she goes to the bed about 10.30 PM so happily.

Yeah, I know, you got it right, it is just my imagination. In fact, it won’t happen even in my dream.

My mom wakes up about 4:30/5:00 AM without any alarm clock and starts her day with tea, coffee preparation for all. She may be washing the previous day’s plates and other kitchen utensils in parallel. She usually prepares breakfast for everyone, at least three kinds every day. At least one will complain about the taste and be upset about it. At least one will eat just a bit or skip because it is already late. At least one will feel that something else for the day would be nice. Time flies to 12 PM before she finishes her cleaning, washing work and returns to lunch preparation. Her break times are the small tasks she does in between, like sweeping floors and folding clothes. And the evening moves quickly to put her back in the kitchen for dinner preparation. I am not mentioning the number of small tasks and the preparations she needs to do for each work. She does everything while the family members show their annoyance, anger, …  and no real appreciation at all. And the worst of all is when she can’t get the grasp of “latest”s and cannot use them as the way it should be. Based on how it is in your family, you may see this as an exaggeration or an understatement but, the actual realisation happens very late, closer to too late.

I think many of the “homemaker”s, especially those over 50, do things that are simply impossible for us. It is not because that it is their “duty”. Or is it? It is not for a day or a week; they do it every day, continuously for over, at least for 20 years, even when they are slightly unwell. If we give this job to a robot, it might, out of frustration, program itself to raise complaints. Where do our moms get the power to do this? I often think about the book “Man’s Search For Meaning” (which talks about how “something” is there to motivate us and keep going, no matter what the situation is) when I think of how my mom is able to do this.

So what is that “something” that keeps moms doing things that they do? All her acts are sowing the seeds of the experience of love in us. But is it her love for us that makes her do everything? While I am closer to concluding that it is her “love”, I am still doubtful about that. There could be something else. If you find one, I am sure it will be superior to love.