Iterate Mom

December month- the month when Christmas is celebrated. Children eagerly await the arrival of Santa Claus who will bring a lot of gifts The month not only ushers in festivities and planning of parties for New Year celebration but also lot of tension for teacher's. Sneha a school teacher was busy correcting the Pre Board papers. While the entire world was enjoying Christmas vacation and travelling or feasting, here she was worrying about the students who had not fared well in the exam. What will happen to this children? When school reopens I will revise everything for the students again so that they will benefit from it. She began making concept maps, mind maps which will enable the students to remember academic vocabulary easily. Once done with it she started surfing the net so that she could devise easier methods for her students to remember the concepts learnt in class.

"No plans to sleep today," asked her husband. She gave a weary smile. Realised that it was 1 AM, shut down the computer and got up. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell asleep.

Being a teacher was not an easy job.Only people in this profession will know how taxing it could be at times. But nevertheless she enjoyed it. Her son Aryan studied in the same school where she was a teacher. He had slept off early today as his mid term exams were going to start from the next day. "Are you prepared for the exam?" She had asked him casually earlier on in the day, to which he had nodded in the affirmative.

Many times Sneha would feel that being a teachers child and studying in the same school had it's own set of problems for Aryan. Poor fellow was always under the scanner. Teenage boys would always be up to something. What else do you expect from them? It's actually the hormones which makes them behave weirdly? Anytime Aryan would pick up an argument with his teacher, Sneha would be immediately summoned and updated about it. She would not understand why his teacher would not have the patience to wait till the parents teachers meet. Do they call up other parents and complain to them about their child's misdoings? Only because she was in the same school, the teacher would ensure she's updated her about what had happened in the class. Aryan had to bear the brunt of this as she would then take him to task after getting back home. "Aryan, why do you behave like this? I don't want to put my head down in front of anyone because of you?" Aryan would just stand in front of her apologize and get back to his normal routine.

It was a Saturday the next day. Since it was a second Saturday, there would be a parent teacher's meet. She had told her husband to meet Aryan's teachers as she herself would be busy meeting the parents of her class students. She had jotted down even the smallest of improvement and achievements of her students so that she can tell the parents about the strong areas of their ward and where they need to put in extra efforts. 

You really got to be a teacher to celebrate other children's achievements, to be enthusiastic on their birthdays and be forgiving all the time. With all the preparations done, she was ready to face the parents the next day.

One after the other they kept coming. Some were grumpy as they had to wait for sometime, but most of them were happy while leaving as they got to know what are the achievements of their children and the areas they need to focus on. At almost 10.30 AM came Dhanya's mom. Dhanya was the best student in Neha's class. She was the kind of child anybody would want to have. The goody good all rounder kind. Sneha greeted Dhanya's mom with the best of her smiles. As soon as Dhanya's mom occupied a seat she told her that Dhanya was doing well academically and there was no cause of concern. But what worried her was her frequent absence from classes recently. Dhanya's mom broke down as soon as Sneha had completed her sentence.

Sneha could not understand what had she done? Why was the parent crying so miserably? She offered her a glass of water. After having water, the lady calmed down a little and started speaking. Ma'am of late Dhanya used to have headaches and sometimes light fever. We took her to our family physician, who gave her medicines but her headache and fever persisted. That's when he asked us to get some tests done. Further investigations by the doctors revealed that Dhanya has blood cancer. I always thought my child was healthy. Even in my wildest of dreams I would have not thought of facing such a situation. We as parents are unable to come to terms with it. I don't even know how to tell her this. Tears started trickling down Sneha's eye's. She could very well imagine the parents plight. Dhanya's mom pulled out a handkerchief from her bag, and wiped her face. I know all is not lost ma'am.

She can bounce back to normal life with all the advancement made in medical science. But the only question is to stay strong and face the situation. I don't know how I will be able to do it? I'm unable to sleep at night nowadays. I keep on checking on Dhanya, if she's alright. Is she still breathing? The doctor says she will be alright with treatment as it's detected in the initial stage. But you know ma'am there's always a can and if in between. Nobody is telling anything for sure. My husband is leaving no stone unturned. We will go abroad if needed for her treatment. Just pray ma'am she becomes alright soon. Sneha put a comforting hand on the parents hand, gave a feeble smile and said,"I will keep her in my prayers."

The meeting with Dhanya's mom shook her. Her head was spinning thinking about Dhanya. How can a child who looked so healthy have such a serious ailment? 

She realised health was more important than anything else. If you don't have that only then your achievements and material possessions were of no use. The thing that most of us fail to understand is we know how much wealth we possess but no one knows how much time we have left. Each one of us have to fight our own battles. Like us the children also have struggles of their own. Studying a subject they hate, trying to get that passing marks, be the guy or girl who's liked by all and what not.

Suddenly the motherly instinct in her became very strong and she thought to herself "I will not unnecessarily scold Aryan henceforth. All children are good at something and they will carve a niche for themselves in life. Why worry about the future all the time?"

The next day (Sunday) even at 9.30 AM Aryan was fast asleep. "Aryan get up? How can you be like this? What kind of future you will have if you are not serious and continue to sleep like this?"

Whatever happened to Sneha's resolve of being a "Cool Mom" and take it in her stride, God knows. After all once a mom, always a mom.