Monday, April 7, 2014

Apprehensions of age.

Mom's back with us after almost a month's hiatus and 'The Quarterdeck' is already filled with the sounds and other accompanying facets thanks to her presence. There are certain favourite places where she perches herself so that she's able to survey the entire scene, not missing out on even a single sight or sound, her hearing constraint notwithstanding!

We've structured our day to day activities to suit her requirements. By the time I'm back from my early morning walk, she'd have already woken up and progressed through her bath - an early morning bath is a pre-requisite before she has her morning cuppa, which has to be served piping hot but she drinks it only after much of the heat has lost its intensity. She browses the newspaper and offers reactions on some of the stories that has agitated her and mind you, it has a lot of sense packed in it.

The daylight hours are spent by her in monitoring the various activities that are going on in the house and she takes short naps, in between, at random. Every phone call is monitored and she's to be told about the identity of the caller and the contents of the conversations. Her afternoon siesta after a carefully measured lunch of rice - a must for lunch and dinner - and other attendant curry and vegetables is exactly for a duration of an hour and nothing more. The medicines are taken after she's carefully taken them out from their wrappings and bottles at designated timings.

By sunset, she insists on the main door being closed and bolted - we've frequent fights on this one - lights burning in all rooms and anxiously waits for my return from the evening walk. This evening, there was a thundershower which was more of a combination of lightning and thunder with very less rain and she seemed to be scared. This is unlike my mom that I'm familiar with but I suppose it's the metamorphosis of a human being consequent to advancing age!

And soon it's bedtime, at about 2145h, and I accompany her up the steps to her bedroom - she's brought down in a similar fashion in the morning, reminding me of the cane-orderlies steering the flight of stairs to and from the quarterdeck for the accompanying VVIPs.


Tailpiece.

At times, I tend to fly off my handle when mom repeats a query more than once. She doesn't react to my tantrums and let it pass, leaving me guilty and confused about my lack of maturity. But I'm sure she understands that there's not even a hint of malice in my thought or deed!

   

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