The Inherited Custody

CHAPTER V

5

Your son made me a necklace yesterday. When he tied it around my neck, it felt rough against my skin.

I looked in a mirror for the first time ever since you left. And when I did, I couldn't look at the necklace anymore. Simply because I started thinking who was I? Or better, what?

When I was not able to categorize it well: mother, wife (ex), believer, doer, achiever, life giver, helper, lover (of nature, of my children, of this dwelling with strangers, and most of all Guru), I began losing my concentration on things. I messed up some chores.

I mistakenly put sugar in the Dal for lunch and everybody ate that. Guru noticed, and though I believed she was upset (I secretly wanted her to be upset) she smiled at me with no reason.

I meditated for two days. Yet, nothing.

On the third when I was trying to meditate, I was summoned by Guru, behind the ashram in her garden. The first thing she did was ask me why I was so agitated. When I couldn't reply, she simply said that she had realized that there were things bothering me that were both, in and out of my control. That we often tend to do that.

"Love yourself first," she told me, "as who you are. Whatever you are, or whoever you have been is not your concern. The universe, everything the stars want, will do with it what it concludes it to be."

That was the first time I realized that it didn't matter much whether you were here, or wherever you are now. Perhaps I never was your wife. That title suddenly felt futile. That role didn't sound universal to me anymore. Or any other role, for that matter.

Even when our children grow up, they'll have to be alone. To attend their meditations alone. Go to study alone. Take care of themselves alone.

That my role in their life is temporary— just like yours was in mine. You see? The bigger picture?