The window glass was frosted and a three inch thick layer of
snow covered the street outside, and still more was falling when I received a
phone call from my motherland. My mother’s heart transplant surgery was scheduled
for tomorrow and I needed to send the money home. That money was the reason I
was away from her at this crucial time. Deciding not to take any chances of
late delivery, I exited my dilapidated apartment and braced the storm outside
at this ungodly hour. But the night had something else in store for me. As I
turned the street corner I was busted by some thugs. I refused to hand over the
money and hence got beaten near to death.
Delivering a final kick to my ribs with their heavy snow covered boots,
they ended my torture and walked away with the money. Leaving me to die in the
middle of the snow covered street. Try as hard as I might I could not get up
and as the minutes passed the numbing cold started to seep in through my torn
clothing, it clogged the wounds stopping the bleeding and making me numb to the
pain. But the thought that I had failed my mother was most painful and could
not be numbed. Soon the hypothermia began to set in and I could feel the
pricking needles of the harsh air in my throat as breathing became an ordeal! The
thought of my mother was not allowing me to lose consciousness but I knew that
my death was eminent as no one will wander out in this snow storm in the middle
of the night.
All
sense of time was lost to me and I did not know how long had passed when a pair
of brown boots approached me. At first I thought it was another merciless
street wanderer come to salvage whatever he could. But then I thought I was
hallucinating, when a wrinkled old face entered my vision and a gnarled hand
grabbed my wrist to check if I had some life left in me. The figure got up and
started heading back the way it had come. I did not mind her leaving me because
I could see that she was a crippled old lady hardly able to support herself
with a staff. She could not have possibly been able to help me even if she
wanted to.
My eyes were
starting to close when I saw the stooped shadowy figure returning. She was
having difficulty carrying the bundle of blankets in her arm. She tilted precariously
on her staff as a flurry of snow rushed past her. Upon reaching me she threw
the bundle down on the snow and started unrolling it with trembling hands. She draped
the blankets over me, opened a warm water bottle and cleaned my clogged wounds.
The freezing storm was making it difficult for her to move and even to breathe
but she ignored her discomfort and kept up her efforts to revive my unmoving
body. And I remember thinking that she was an angel in disguise sent from the
heaven above but then I thought the heavens would not want me because I was
unable to save my mother’s life a and it will remain my biggest regret.
The distant
sirens told me that she must have called an ambulance. Soon the paramedics
surrounded me and gave me injections for controlling hypothermia. As I started
to get some feeling back into my body they carried me to the ambulance. When they
were carrying me to the ambulance I grabbed hold of the gnarled wrinkled hand
and asked; “Why?”
A soft trembling voice replied; “because I AM A MOTHER”
And I realized that the love of a mother is
universal knowing no bounds and my own mother would also have willingly embraced
death a thousand more times to save my life!
