My mum died when I was 7.
A very early age for me don’t you think? To be devoid of both my parents, a lone child with no siblings. What I would have to do to survive, or what would I live on? I didn’t know the answer to those questions.
An uncle took me in. Raised me like his own, like a father. A small family of two I had.
It was in the evening when she died. I do not remember much but the parts i do are still so vivid.
Living in a slum, my mother and I, we only had a tiny room to roam on and about. My playground, living room and kitchen all in one. Mum was sick for days then. If I remember anything now, she was always sick. Whenever she was a little better, the sickness came back even worse. Made her irritated and always angry.
So that evening, she was very sick. Coughing badly even in her sleep. She Had lost the ability to both speak and work.
I was playing on the floor beside the bed with an action figure which I found in a nearby dump. I was very hungry but we had nothing left to eat and she didn’t cook anything that day. With all the force in my small arms, I was trying to break the toy in half to take my mind away from the hunger when all of a sudden, she sat up on the only bed that we had. I stopped playing and looked at her.
She was staring at the wall in front and kept looking. She had this look. This look like somebody was coming to kill her.
After a couple of minutes, she faced me. Smiled back with the heartiest expression I’ve ever seen. Only that time I felt like I had something close to a mom when I think about her now. She spoke to me in a clear voice, sounding like the waves of a thin mountain river flowing down towards the valley. She wanted water.
I got up and went to the bathroom sink to fill up a jug. When I came back, she was laying on the wall, mumbling something I couldn’t make out. With her bloodshot eyes. i couldnt look at her fully as a kitchen shelveblocked my view. So I walked towards her and saw what she had done.
She took the kitchen knife and had slit her throat.
I ran out, ran and ran through all the small sheds and finally I reached the tree lines of a nearby forest. All the while I cried. She was never good to me, always beating and cursing. Still, I was sad. I fell near a tree as my feet got stuck to a fallen branch and scratched myself everywhere from the fall. I laid down and didn’t even got up. Felt like the world was destroyed and I was the only one left
I don’t know how long I was there. It was a moonlit night. At a distance I could hear the cars swooshing by as the forest was near a highway.
When The Moon was at the very top, I decided to get back.
While getting back home, I thought it was a nightmare. I’m dreaming, I could even smell her sleeping beside me. But when I came close to the shed, I could see it was all true.
The police came.There was a police van near the road and an ambulance.
A neighbor found her when she came to check on her and brought some food. When she entered the room she had found her like that and called the police. She was talking with them when she saw me. She again said something to them and pointed at me. The officers then turned and waved, to go to them.
They asked me things I do not remember now. There was this balled guy who asked me if I was hungry. I nodded as fast as I can. They handed me to her and she then took me In for the night, fed me and gave me a bed to sleep on.
The next morning Uncle Jack came.
To be continued....
Cover photo from Pixabay