My mother is a poem!

By Dr. Muhammad Hafizullah

My mother is a poem

I'll never be able to write,

though everything I write

is a poem to my mother.

(Sharon Doubiago)

May be I can go one or perhaps many steps further! Motherhood is a 'unique phenomenon' and the whole world bears testimony to it. The world is a pageant and it reflects mother's love in different hues and shapes. It is not confined to the way we write or compose poem, it encompasses everything we do - the way we think, act, walk, talk, argue, conceive, perceive, persist and deliver. All aspects of a human personality reflect the upbringing and the lessons one learnt at her knees. "That best academy, a mother's knee." James Russell Lowell

Mothers comes in different 'types'- hailing from different social classes, religious beliefs, literacy levels, geographical distributions but one thing binds them together - unconditional profound love for children. Three trimesters spent in the womb helps a child develop the strongest bond with mother - which becomes stronger with every passing day. 

Mother's love is like a sea - very deep, very quiet and then has waves which may reflect only a billionth part of it but it keeps assuring and enhancing child's confidence and ego.

When life is engulfed with clouds of sorrows and all the worldly props desert one by one, it's the mother that comes to the rescue.  "Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries," aptly remarked T. DeWitt Talmage. And we all realise that, "A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us, when trouble thickens around us, still she will cling to us, and endeavour by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts," as mentioned by Washington Irving.

A mother runs towards her falling child totally oblivious of the surroundings! At that time only one thing matters and that is her child. Like a camera focusing on an object and blurring out all other details as perfunctory.

"Who ran to help me when I fell,

And would some pretty story tell,

Or kiss the place to make it well?

My mother."  (Ann Taylor)

All mothers are blessed with large hearts - which can offer tons of love to all her off springs with no expectations in return and continue to shower this love on the future generations.

Mothers have special hearts filled to brim with forgiveness. "The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness," remarked Honoré de Balzac

"If I was damned of body and soul,

I know whose prayers would make me whole,

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine."

(Rudyard Kipling).

A mother's supplication can shake the whole world when her unlimited love echoes in her prayers. Motherhood is a strange sentiment, which can stand like a rock against all odds regardless of consequences.

A mother cat will stand up to any animal - regardless of size and ferocity to prevent her children from any harm. 

No painter's brush, nor poet's pen

In justice to her fame

Has ever reached half high enough

To write a mother's name. (Author Unknown)

All men of letters, born since the birth of this ephemeral abode till eternity, put together cannot do justice to describe this unique emotion, sentiment, feeling, passion and determination called motherhood. This is truly a very peculiar bond that not only transcends age, geography and religion but is ubiquitous among all creatures - humans and animals. Allah Subhanu Taala instilled this inimitable emotion in all His creatures to the brim.

"Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends towards the formation of character," said Hosea Ballou. 

This holds true from time immemorial in all societies. That is why wonders Joe Louis,  "I hope they're still making women like my momma. She always told me to do the right thing. She always told me to have pride in myself; she said a good name is better than money."

So overwhelming is the feeling and so soaked is this bond in love that instead of revealing what is in store in my heart about my mother, I took refuge in spreading it on a bigger canvas - generalising it and hiding behind what others had to say about it.  

Only once in my life time, I hated my career and wished I had never adopted medicine as a profession! This was when my own mother slipped through my hands and I had to watch it helplessly! Next time when a lady kissed my hands saying, "You are a messiah that saved my life!" I had very hard time hiding my flowing tears- cognizant of my inability to keep the icy hands of death away from my own mother.

Two very well known physicians - the pride of our profession went through the same experience on losing their mothers. Severing of this strong bond- the principal source of inspiration and consolation leaves a person, regardless of age, in such a spin that one nearly loses sanity and has to reestablish his identity and bonds from the start. 

"Look in those eyes... Listen to that dear voice... Notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand! Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all gifts. Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the anxiety of that tone and look, however slight is your pain. In after life you may have friends, fonds, dears, but never you will have again the inexpressible love & gentleness levished upon you which none but a mother bestows." Macaulay