11 July 2025. My mom was my first friend. Growing up as a single child, I shared every thought, every detail of my life with my mom. The habit continues. As Oscar Wilde said, “Every woman becomes their mother…” Much to my delight and consternation, I can see that I am slowly transitioning into my mother. Hopefully, I will beget her strength and fortitude.
Finding Strength in Solitude: Voice Notes and Balcony Views.
When my father passed away in 2018, the silence he left behind felt deafening. As I prepared to return to Dubai, I asked my mother to come with me, just for a few months, to heal. But she surprised me with a quiet strength I hadn’t anticipated.
“No,” she said gently. “I’ll come later. I need to get used to being alone. Dubai will only be a temporary escape. If I go now and return to an empty home, it will be unbearable.”
Her clarity stunned me. I understood her reasoning and chose not to let others influence me with their well-meaning but intrusive suggestions and chorus of opinions: “Don’t leave her alone!”, “Why not stay longer?”, “This is what happens when children live abroad…” I trusted her instinct. She knew what she needed, and I respected that. I had to return to Dubai, to Sujith, and our life. And life, inevitably, had to move on.
Today, my mother lives alone in Chennai. We visit each other as often as we can, alternating between her home and ours in Dubai. We’ve even enjoyed a couple of mother-daughter vacations, where the roles subtly reversed, she, the curious child, and I, the protective parent.
Her daily voice messages are a constant in my life. They arrive in waves, updates, thoughts, musings from her day. When I’m in the middle of writing or caught up with chores, the barrage of messages can feel intrusive. I’ll play her voice in the background while doing something else, only to hear her ask later, “Why haven’t you replied?” I’ve snapped, said things I shouldn’t have, and quickly regretted it. Thankfully, neither of us lets such moments fester. We vent, move on, and return to everyday conversation, never letting arguments grow into monsters.
One of her favorite pastimes is sitting on the balcony of her 14th-floor apartment, watching life unfold below. Five years ago, one doctor insisted she needed immediate cataract surgery. Another said she didn’t have cataracts at all. Either way, she seems to have better eyesight than I do!
Every day, she narrates what she sees, a running commentary of everything she sees: a toddler wobbling around under a grandmother’s watchful eye, a mother escorting her daughter to tennis class while balancing twin toddlers on her hips, the eldest child dragging a tennis racquet behind. The occasional police jeeps or ambulances in the complex. She clicks pictures of the monkeys hanging on the door grill or prancing on the terrace and recounts their antics, all the while laughing uncontrollably. The area was once a mango orchard, but the trees were felled to make way for the high-rise apartments. So, the monkeys were in their habitat and refused to move away. Yesterday, she was particularly animated. The colleges have reopened, and our apartment complex, which sits beside a university, is buzzing again. Students are back, hanging around in groups, chatting, laughing, revving up their bikes. “The college kids are back!” she beamed. “It’s so lively! Remember that Prabhu Deva song about April and May! I feel exactly the same.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or admire her joy. This childlike enthusiasm, this ability to find delight in the everyday, is her superpower. Living alone at her age isn’t something most would recommend, but she does it with grace, strength, and a sense of wonder that keeps her going.
She has taught me that healing doesn’t always come from company or distraction. Sometimes, it comes from sitting still, looking out from a balcony, and learning to be okay with your own company.
