Letting Go

When does a parent really let go? Or does it ever happen? I have embarrassed both Ponnu and her father with my feelings over her. Yet, I would not like to term it an obsession, because Ponnu is not an obsession. I can see her living her life without me around -- without me on the phone talking to her and inquiring after her.

Yet, there was a distraught me a few years ago when Ponnu was in her last year at school. Soon enough it was time for Ponnu to appear for her final examinations. And the day came when her dad and me accompanied her to the examination hall. No word escaped my lips as I saw my child talking with her friends and then it was time to say good bye. I hugged her and she kissed me and I wished her the best for her exams. She joined the queue that would take her into the examination hall. Then it hit me. This was the most important examination in my child’s student life, until then. Perhaps, I think now, perhaps, the fact that she was no longer the child whose hand I had held and taken to school years ago or the reality that she was a grown up girl though still in school uniform that made me sad or it was just an amalgamation of these thoughts. I really don’t know. But the tears slipped unchecked and Ponnu saw it. She looked at me, enlarged her pupils and put her finger across her lips. I nodded.

I left the school compound and Ponnu’s dad wondered why I was sniffing. "What happened", he asked. “Oh, I just felt a bit emotional seeing Ponnu going off to write her first public exams,” I said. He laughed. “Now, what will you do when she goes off as a bride,” he asked. I heard him and surprised myself by laughing. Really, what would I do then.