Angel In Disguise!

        

        

             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!