Holding On, Moving On

There are some things in life which are very dear to us. Like the first College T shirt or the first black boots or the broken vase in the corner of the living room. Even though these items have lost their materialistic purpose long ago, they still serve a very emotional purpose for us. We understand the thing and it understands us. Whenever we come face to face, we tend to give out an inward sigh and go back into those good old days where…

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These small items are windows for us to go back to our happy past and live that moment yet again. One such item in my house was a multicolored mural glass lamp. It was a very pretty lamp but what made it prettier was the fact that it was the first gift that my mother gave to my husband before we got married. My husband and I had a love marriage and it had been kind of difficult to convince my mother about it. When she finally came around to accepting our relationship and gifting the lamp, it made the lamp very special not for him, maybe not even for her, but extremely special for me. For me, it symbolized the coming together of two people that I have loved the most.

Even  though it was made of glass and that too pieces of glass joined together, the lamp stayed with us through thick and thin. It witnessed our career growth, our babies, our travels, our business up and downs and the coming and goings of our friends and family. It stopped working multiple times in between and I felt that maybe it had finally lived it’s life, but no, it would again start working, just fine, with a simple change of a bulb. It often moved around in our house from my room to the kids room to the living area. For the past few years, it had been resting on the side of the stairs going up, illuminating the corner so no one would fall on the steps. It was the perfect spot because I got to look at it every time I went up to my room. Its yellow light always warming me up.

Then one day, today, it got tossed over by a flying ball that one of the children was trying to fly. There was a crash and a couple of sucked in breaths as the kids fathomed the shattered glass lying all over the steps. From my room, I rushed to see the accident, hoping that no one had been injured. The kids looked at my faces in fear. Knowing me, they knew there was a storm of angry words coming. But today, there was no storm. There was just a deep flood of emotions. I had tears in my eyes but no words in my mind. I could just muster to tell the kids to stay upstairs and not venture on the steps till I had them cleared of the glass.

As I picked the glass pieces, memories rushed through my head about shopping for the lamp with my mother through the streets of Chandigarh. It had been an expensive lamp but we still bought it because we just felt it was right for the new house that Pavan and I would be building together. Plus it was Diwali and it was surely time to go extra. Did the broken lamp in any way signify that the past was over? Did it mean that it was time to move on from that memory? Did it mean that the bond that my Mother and my Husband shared was dented in any way? I laughed aloud at that thought! It was a fact that just because the lamp broke today I was reminded so deeply of those beautiful memories. If it stood there by the steps forever, I would probably never had lived those memories so deeply ever again. But today, I did. Even though in tears, I walked down memory lane, lived those days again and thanked God for giving me two people that I still love the most. Even in it’s end, the lamp had served it’s purpose.

So should I mourn its end? Should I shout at the children and punish them for breaking something so precious? There was no point in shouting at the kids because there were no words that could make them understand the value of that piece for me. As for, breaking things around the house, the fear in their eyes indicated that they already knew that a mistake had been committed. There was no point of rubbing it, again, at that point. I am sure there would be something else breaking soon in the house. I will save the lecturing for that day. For today, I just wanted to live the life of the lamp one last time. I wanted to celebrate its value and feel grateful that it had meant so much not only when it was up and shining but more so at it’s end.

On a lighter note, I don’t expect my mother or my husband to have the faintest recollection of what the lamp even looked like leave alone the moment we had purchased it/gifted it. Justification being that my mother does not stay with us and I am sure she has no way of remembering each piece of furniture that I own. As for my husbands memory, … it is best to leave that topic for another blog.

Until someone comes into your life and takes over your life in a good way.