The Day After

Today is Amma's birthday and this year, we both (my sister and me) want her to remember this day as it is. Not as a day after the disaster that hit her some 29 years back.
November, she used to say, is a month of losses. For her and for us, too. Every year, this month she would be tensed throughout, as if expecting something bad to happen and come December, you could feel the tension waft out of her.
It is difficult not to be influenced by that particular incident, especially when it has rewritten her life, and particularly when she was so young, just about to enter her thirties, when it occurred.
When the sheltered life she lived, with her husband, was suddenly pulled away from her, leaving her alone and to top it all, with two girls to look after.
And when this incident had slowly taken a back seat, after 10 years, we had another incident in November, making her words seem even more ominous. That was when a thief got lucky, striking us at the right time, ransacking our house of all the jewels, a few months after my wedding. That incident pulled her back again, making her wallow further.
No, I don't want us to forget that incident, nor forget the few fading memories of Acha, I want her to go forward and take life as it comes not fear it for the shocks it gives, but also learn from the experiences.
So this day, we want Amma to think that November is a month of hope and happiness. Hope for all the things she wants to get done, and happiness by being with her grand children and be never alone…
Happy Birthday Amma.
From now remember November 23 and don't think of this special day as the day after Acha died…