This is a letter to my mother on her birthday. It is deeply personal, but if it reminds you to hug your parents a little tighter, tell them you love them a little more often, or cherish the ordinary moments while you still can, then sharing it will have been worth it. Don't wait for the "right day" to say what has lived in your heart for years. Don't postpone the hug, the conversation, the gratitude, or the love. Sometimes carrying love silently is not enough. Showing it matters too. The chance to express it is a gift, and once it is gone, no amount of love can replace the words left unsaid.
Maa.
Just a word—only three letters—yet it carries something so divine that no language has ever been able to contain the weight of it.
Before I lost you, Maa meant warmth, home, safety, and unconditional love.
Now the same word sends a shiver through my soul, carrying the unbearable weight of your absence.
I Never Thought You Would Leave Me
I never imagined that one day my mother would leave me while I still felt like her little baby.
Do you remember when my younger brother was born and, for the first time, you had to leave me for a while? You promised me,
"I'll never leave you."
I believed every word.
After that, I followed you everywhere, holding onto your chunni, terrified that if I let go, you might disappear again.
I wish life had remained just like that.
"If I had known how little time we truly had, I would have never let go of your chunni."
Even today, I believe you have kept your promise.
I know you haven't truly left me—you just no longer have a way to show me the way you once did.
My Safest Place
You were my safest place.
No matter how difficult life became, one phone call from you made everything lighter. Every worry dissolved the moment I heard your voice.
Even when I lived far away, I never felt alone because I knew there was a heart in this world that beat for mine.
No one will ever call me every day just to ask whether I have eaten, or know from the sound of my voice whether I am stressed or perfectly fine.
No one will ever worry the way you did if I didn't answer the phone immediately. Even today, I cannot comprehend how deeply you worried over things that would seem so ordinary to everyone else.
No one will ever wait at the door the way you did.
I can still feel the happiness overflowing from you whenever I came home after a few weeks—the endless hugs, the food waiting for me, and falling asleep in your saanki, just as I lovingly called it.
No one will ever love me, protect me, or make me feel safe with that kind of fearless, boundless, selfless love.
People speak of unconditional love.
I lived inside it.
It was called Maa.
The Heart of Our Home
You were the laughter of our home.
You carried joy and love wherever you went.
You could make anyone laugh within minutes.
You made every festival brighter, every family gathering warmer, and every ordinary day feel like a celebration.
You never rested until everyone had eaten so much that they couldn't take another bite.
Cooking was never just cooking for you—it was your way of loving us. Every meal carried a little piece of your heart. And then there were your fearless little experiments in the kitchen. Somehow, every new dish you created turned out unbelievably delicious, as though love itself had become an ingredient. We would sit around the table dreaming aloud about opening a restaurant one day, convinced that people would travel from anywhere just to taste the food you made. To this day, I have never met anyone who tasted your cooking and didn't remember it for a lifetime.
Your happiness always came after everyone else's.
The Luckiest Son
I always felt I was the luckiest son in the world.
Even after I had grown up, you still loved me like your one-year-old baby—covering me with countless kisses, endless hugs, countless adorable names, and a kind of affection that no number could ever measure.
I wanted to do so much for you.
I wanted to travel with you.
I wanted to buy you everything you had quietly sacrificed for yourself.
I wanted to make you even happier than you already became simply by seeing me walk through the door.
I thought we had time.
I thought life would wait.
I took tomorrow for granted.
You loved me so completely that the longing to give even a fraction of it back now feels heavier than I can bear.
It leaves me helpless, with nothing but tears for all that I never got to do for you.
All that immeasurable love you poured into me now has nowhere to return.
I would give everything I have—and everything I could ever become—for just one more chance to see you smile because of me.
The Conversations Waiting for Eternity
There are so many things that only you could understand.
So many conversations that belonged only to us.
I will carry every unsaid word inside my heart until my final breath.
And when we meet again,
I will tell you everything.
I know exactly what I will do first. I have imagined that moment a thousand times.
I will pull your cheeks just to hear you laugh.
I will tickle you until you pretend to get angry.
Then I will throw myself into your arms exactly like I used to and stay there for as long as eternity allows, completely lost in the only place that has ever truly felt like home.
Before I Knew God, I Knew Maa
People tell me to place my faith in God.
Maybe one day I will understand Him better.
But today, my first image of unconditional love is still you.
Because before I ever knew what God meant...
I knew what Maa meant.
And even if God wished to love me with even half the immeasurable love and care that you had for me, He would still fall short.
Through you, I experienced a love so complete that words fail before it.
Your Birthday
14-07-1976 is your birthday.
If you were here, we would have celebrated it exactly the way we always did.
My brother and I would spend hours in the kitchen, proudly attempting to cook the one dish we knew best—something you could have made perfectly in just a few minutes.
We would laugh at our own mess, wrap up a funny little gift that was all we could afford, and somehow, you would hold it as though we had placed the whole world in your hands.
You had a beautiful way of making us believe that love was never measured by its price, only by the heart that carried it.
You kept every greeting card we ever made for you tucked safely inside the little purse we gifted you when we were children.
They were filled with our crooked little Picasso drawings and my brother's adorable, wonderfully gibberish shayaris, written exactly the way he pronounced the words—so innocently that only I could understand what he meant.
You treasured every one of them as though they were priceless masterpieces.
That was the quiet miracle of your love.
The smallest things we did for you—things that took us almost no effort—filled you with a happiness that words could never describe.
Yet the love, care, and sacrifices you poured into us every single day were beyond anything we could ever hope to return.
How beautifully you loved us.
How effortlessly you made us feel that we had already given you the whole world, when in truth, you were the one who had given us everything.
Not a Goodbye
Not a single day passes without you living in my thoughts.
As long as this heart continues to beat,
I will remember you.
And when my own journey in this world is complete,
I hope the first voice I hear is yours—
"calling me home, in the same voice that once made every place feel like home."
Until then...
This is not a goodbye.
It's only an "I'll tell you everything when we meet again."
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