March 29, 2024. Four months down the road and the little birdie will fly out of the nest, fully stretching her wings to take on the entire world. Yes, she will have to be wary of the cliffs that have a potential of derailing her flight, but when did she take counsel for her fears. I have a gut feel and pray to God that her flight path mostly become a gliding session where she soars to new heights all along. The feeling is surreal, more so for a teenager than for mature adults, where she will have to navigate the swim lanes herself with no Papa or mummy physically present to take care of daily mundane things, be it buying groceries, reminding to take medicines, waking up for school etc etc. Ishna nobody is going to wake you up from bed early morning and you can sleep all that you want. Not that she has not been doing these things herself or needs some hand holding. I am proud of having raised a pretty independent and confident young lady who can fight her odds any day and beat them and has a wonderful sense of time management. I must admit, I am surprised at times as to how she manages to get it all done in so less a time. May be she has perfected the juggling art into a science form.
I still remember that day of November 2006 when I drove her from St. John Mercy hospital in Creve Couver (a suburb of St. Louis, MO) where she was born to Rolla, Mo where I was an International student. And how the nurse taught me to strap and buckle her in a rear facing car seat. I have not always done a clean job with the car seat thing as I dropped her on floor once at a friend's house. Luckily she was not hurt. I remember driving to Neodesha, KS from Rolla a few months later upon my graduation where I would get my 1st job in US and driving the car into a ditch while negotiating a curve at high speed. Stupid me. How I was relieved to see people extracting her out of the car seat. This time too, I was lucky or was it "Hari Icha?" I don't want luck to run out on me. May be I can be accused of being selfish. But I would argue-Selfishness is good on some occasions and leave it at that and don't digress the talk toward that topic.
Growing up a child and that too in an alien land with no trace of culture (where the society is based on fake constructs only aimed at instant gratification of senses) has been a big challenge and don't know (and I will challenge anyone who claims to know) whether I have done a good job at that. Let God and God alone be my judge-for he does not judge anyone. I have gone through my pains and accepted them rather than swim against the tide. Growing up a child is one big learning experience and only the lucky ones get to go through it. Picking up on the pains, they started with very basic ones-be it Ishna's 1st or later tummy aches when we learnt that "Prune" was the life-saver here for her tummy-aches(I remember the 1st time she had a tummy ache when she was only weeks old and I was acting as if the world has ended, with the pediatrician telling me that it was only gas), or the "febrile seizure" she had in Neodesha when she was six months old. She had been dehydrated and vomitted about six times that day. By the time Pooja arrived from Rolla(she was a student there at the time pursuing her Masters), Ishna was exhausted and may be her body could not take it any more. That day I realized how wonderful the service that 911 renders to the society is. But had it not been for a 911 first responder who lived. just behind us, I might not have been lucky a 3rd time. I will always be indebted to him as I can't repay the debt.
Ishna has given me many gifts including an Apple watch (I don't claim to use all its features) but her most precious gift to me has been my son-KANYON. Had it not been for her dogged insistence, I would never have met my soul son KANYON and basked in the glory thereafter. Thanks Ishna for that. Sometimes stubbornness is not that bad at all. She has been very knowledgeable about dogs and would know everything about them as a child. I, on the other hand, was never interested in fathering one. I don't know about Pooja.
Speaking about Pooja, her whole world revolves around her daughter. Did Ishna eat, did Ishna get up-O I have to drive Ishna to VB or this or that (Thank God Ishna is driving herself now). I remember when as a child Ishna would come home hungry from each party that we would go to or a friend's place and Pooja would be making Aloo Parathas for her in the middle of the night. I would be peacefully snoring away in my bedroom. May be Pooja will find a little time for herself now and rediscover her identity. Ishna would fall asleep in the car after tiring herself with play at a friend's house and I would carry her to her bed till she became too heavy for me to carry. It is just that I got old and weak-she never picked up any weight-resembling me in my youth-skinny as I was in my teenage.
I am thankful to God for the beautiful, confident young lady that Ishna has grown into. I do not want to paint a rosy picture of it being a walk in the park. It has been a roller-coaster ride with its crests and troughs, its challenges and arguments. But isn't that sign of a vibrant personality. As they say if two men always agree on all the things, then one of them is redundant. Ishna has a BOLD personality and gets what she wants. I don't know whether she has taken my teaching "Don't let anybody bully you" too literally but if she has, at least as a parent, I have one less thing to worry about. This trait would come in handy, especially now that she will be moving out of the house, making decisions on her own and interacting with all shades of people, learning a huge lesson in the process. A good deal. I have to admit, Ishna needs minimum hand-holding. She would manage all the admissions applications, dead-lines, essays etc on her own. Yes she would talk to me on those. That is where a parent should stop rather than trying to micro-manage, living their life through their kid. She handles many things herself and she has shown immense maturity there which other kids won't even dare to touch.
The feeling that your daughter will be leaving after sometime and living life on her own terms (not that she has not been living on her terms) is very humbling. Humbling because it is a clarion call that says "Hey! You were only the custodian so far and thanks for safe keeping but don't try to be the owner. The property (not that kids are a property) may be too hot to handle and you may end up burning your hands." It is a part of life. God tells me-Your daughter leaving home for school is not the 1st kid to do so. She will be fine. But then for every parent, it happens for the 1st time. And some reaction is only human. Soon it will be only the two of us (me and Pooja) sitting in a corner of the house and brooding over things, or may be end up reinventing ourselves or keeping ourselves busy with other meaningful pursuits in life. So many of them left to do. As they say, if you love some-one, set it free. If it was yours, it will come back to you. Time will tell.
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