I am still not sure whether god made me, but i can swear that you made me, dear mother

Fifty five years is a very long time in my life and to live for fifty five years without you, Oh mother has certainly not been easy for your son.

I know I have remembered you every day of my life, but I don't know why I miss you more during the month of November, the month in which you left me alone to face a million storms without you being there to stand by me and save me

I am filled with a certain fear when November comes, I feel as if you are going to die again and leave me to fight my battles which are growing more and more difficult as I keep growing older ( can you imagine, dear mother that your favourite son has lived to be seventy after all that he has faced in his life ? ).

It is still two weeks to go for me to observe your anniversary, then why is my heart so full of memories of the time I lived with you and why do the tears flow down my cheeks whenever I am alone and I think of you ?

I still have vivid memories from my early childhood when you give me a bath with the kinds of soap you couldn't afford and still bought them for me and your hands which ran all over my body had the kind of feel and touch I have never experienced again

Why do I remember how you took me to different barbers to see that my wild mop of hair was put in some order and how you paid the barber who succeeded in taming my hair more than what he charged for s normal hair cut

How can I forget how you drilled into my head the importance of cleanliness and how you made me wake up in time, brush my teeth, have my breakfast which was prepared by you and the taste of which refuses to leave my tongue and how I still remember the rawa pudding you had packed in my dabba on my first day in school and how you changed the contents of my dabba every day ?

You didn't have the privilege of going to any school but you made sure that I went to the best school around and had even slept outside a leading school so that I could get admitted to that school.

You had never written a line in your life, but you were thrilled when you saw me write and showed my handwriting to all your friends neighbors and relatives with the pride which only a mother could have.

You made it a point to take me with you to the market to see how people made a living and I remember that evening when I was lost the fish market and you had created a storm about missing your son and I still remember how you celebrated my being found on the lap of an old fisherwoman who had kept me safe because she knew that I was the son of " Mary Bai ".

And how can I forget how you took pains to see that I learned how to make tea, how to cook rice and daal and how to grind the masala on that round grinding stone especially used in your native place, Mangalore and how you saw to it that I learned to take of myself and I remember your favorite line when I made a mistake and your line was, " what will you do when I go away ? " And could not make any sense of what you meant by that line till ....

I felt miserable when you came to see my teacher and could not sign your name and I had decided that I would teach you at least to sign your name " M. Ali " and I had succeeded and I could see how happy you were when you signed some papers and finally sign your name on a few brass utensils we had in our poor house

You had your own ways of praying, (you prayed in the English prayers taught to you by those Spanish nuns in the women's home where my father had found you and brought to his house to take care of his children from his second wife and who had seen you as an ideal mother and had moved heaven and earth to marry you ) and I as a child used to wonder whether god would understand your prayers and grant you the favours you prayed for so fervently every evening

You had many ambitions and dreams for me and your best dream for me was to see me married to " an English girl " , you also were worried about my future and I often heard you saying, I am not worried about my other two sons, I am only worried about my Peter, who will take care of him after I die"

You had made a prediction for yourself, you died suddenly when you were only 45 and I was only 15, the priest who feasted on your best food and country liquor told me that you had gone to. Heaven, I did not believe him than and I do not believe in anyone telling me that you are sitting at the feet of God with angeles and saints surrounding you

ALL I KNOW AND SWEAR BY IS THAT YOUR HEAVEN IS IN MY HEART AND YOU WILL LIVE IN MY HEART AS LONG AS MY HEART LIVES , WILL I STOP CRYING FOR YOY DEAR MOTHER ? CANT YOU FIND SOME WAY OF STOPPING MY TEARS FROM FLOWING WHENEVER I THINK OF YOU OR ABOUT YOU ? WHY DO I HAVE TO CRY WHEN I KNOW THAT YOU ARE ALIVE AND LIVE IN ME ? WILL YOU ANSWER THESE AND SOME OTHER QUESTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN TROUBLING ME AND TORMENTING ME SINCE THAT BLACK DAY IN MY LIFE, November 30 ,1965 ?