Food For Thought -On Mummy and how she shaped my life

Its been a very long time since I wrote a piece for this blog Food For Thought and when I look at the last entry, its dated 11th September 2017. For all those who have enquired or wondered, the answer is a straightforward and sad one. I lost my beautiful mother Satinder Serna on the 17th of October 2017 and life changed forever. I know it may be hard for some people to understand the logic behind these words but it really is so very simple. I was a different person when my mother was alive and I feel like a completely different person after she has left us.

There is a hole in my heart which hasn't been filled almost six months later. While I've been involved in a wide range of other things, all I could do was think about how it would have been if I could see, touch and hear my lovely mother Satinder. Most days, there are two parallel streams of thought running through my head at all times of the day- one, the real world where I have to participate in day to day activities and in many cases, initiate them. The other, thoughts of my mother and everything she meant to me. In a word, 'indescribable'. Every day, I realise, more and more, how much she shaped so many different aspects of my life and along with that so many, many others, including my father and brother's. Small things pop up in my head- just regular everyday things that my mother did for us. Coming home from school was always a pleasure - simply because we knew that Mummy's smiling face would greet my brother Navtej and myself . This was followed by a glass of fresh orange juice and after we had washed and changed, Mummy always had lunch with us. Never mind if it was almost 3 pm, she always sat and ate with us. This was accompanied by peals of laughter, hers more than ours as we shared the days stories and planned for the evening ahead.Sports and extra curricular activities were encouraged almost as much , sometimes even more than academics by Mummy and the old adage, 'All work and no play. makes Jill/Jack a dull boy/girl .." was frequently used by her in order to keep us active and motivated.

A student of Loreto Convent Tara Hall Shimla , Mummy was both Head Girl and Games Captain in er final year and a top notch scholar to boot. Little wonder that she was the best example for us to emulate and boy, dd we try! After school Mummy went to Lady Irwin College, New Delhi for her BSC in Home Science and learnt the best and most current ways to run a home as well as a professional kitchen or hotel as she may have chosen to apply it. As it happened , she met and married my father, HS Serna at a very young age of 19 and from then on this was a firm and happy partnership which lasted for 58 Golden years.

I could go on and on and I do plan to- but that is for another place and time. I have started work on Mummy's biography and even if I can do the slightest bit of justice to her towering personality, I would feel a real sense of satisfaction. Stories like hers, deserve to be told and I hope I can do it with inputs from my father, brother and many, many people whose lives she touched and influenced in countless ways. And here are some personal resolutions -I am now going to live my life more and more the way that my mother would have wanted me to. On a day to day basis, as well as on a longer term too. I am going to be thankful for the fact that she was a part of my life till October 2017 and encouraged and enthused me to become the person that I am today. Just 21 years older to me, my mother, Satinder, was a pillar of strength for all of us at different stages of our life. Most importantly, her strength and fortitude in dealing with her own ailments, particularly through 2017, will serve to remind us forever that true courage has many forms, but for for us, it was in the form of Mummy. And so, I am striving to go through 2018 with my mother as my guiding star and my angel who watches above us from somewhere up above. And if I fail, I will try, then try again and finally, try some more. For that is exactly what Mummy would have wanted me to.