{"id":16977,"date":"2024-08-27T09:59:45","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T09:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gryoungscholarsmagazine.org\/?p=262"},"modified":"2024-08-27T09:59:45","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T09:59:45","slug":"mother-a-symbol-of-solace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/?p=16977","title":{"rendered":"Mother : A Symbol Of Solace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mother : A Symbol Of Solace<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alex was sitting quietly at the corner of the living room, staring at the<\/p>\n

gloomy dusk outside the window. His temples were aching and the ceaseless<\/p>\n

drops of tears made him very tired. The living room was already overcrowded<\/p>\n

with relatives who had arrived from far and near. Their bedroom was also<\/p>\n

crowded but daddy was quietly sitting beside the cold, motionless figure of his<\/p>\n

mom.<\/p>\n

Alex could not believe that he would never again get to listen to the ringing<\/p>\n

sound of his mother\u2019s laughter. His heart longed for the warm, comforting hug<\/p>\n

from his mom. He had never imagined that things could fall apart so easily.<\/p>\n

Some of the relatives, though he could hardly recognize them with blurred eyes,<\/p>\n

were trying to comfort him. \u201cIs there any comfort left for me ?\u201d, he thought. He<\/p>\n

did not want to go to the bedroom for he could not bear to see his mom lying<\/p>\n

motionless. Neither could he bear the sight of his father\u2019s grieved face with<\/p>\n

clenched jaws, which remained as strong as steel till a few days ago.<\/p>\n

As he wondered, he collected the sweet memories of all the happy moments<\/p>\n

they had shared together. But all of a sudden, he felt a terrible guilt. He blamed<\/p>\n

himself for all the days he had quarrelled with his mom; he remembered how he<\/p>\n

had often misbehaved with her over small things. He was even angry with his<\/p>\n

father now, for the many occasion he had seen them arguing over problems that<\/p>\n

never existed or probably were too insignificant. And now, he longed for the time<\/p>\n

to come back. He wanted to revive those sad moments and turn them into happier<\/p>\n

ones. He wanted back the time he\u2019d spent without talking to his mom, out of<\/p>\n

anger. He desired to live those moments again and fill them up chatting merrily<\/p>\n

with his mom, telling her all the things, he knew, he would never be able to. He<\/p>\n

felt his eyes becoming heavier and he drifted off.<\/p>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

Alex could feel a tender palm brushing his forehead and a distant voice was<\/p>\n

coming to his ears. He opened his eyes to see the room full of decoratives.<\/p>\n

\u2018HAPPY BIRTH DAY\u2019 hung in the walls. His dad was standing beside him,<\/p>\n

gazing at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy Birthday, Alex\u201d, Dad said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you so much, dad\u201d, replied Alex.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, he shuddered at the thought of his mom; his heart began to throb<\/p>\n

faster. But strangely, mom came walking in to the room with three cups of black<\/p>\n

tea. She planted it on the table and threw her arms around him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy Birthday, dear\u201d, she said with a gentle smile on her face.<\/p>\n

Alex was perplexed. His mind was confused.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was a dream. A dream\u201d thought Alex. He was glad that it was a<\/p>\n

dream. After all, everything was alright. Everything was just as it used to be,<\/p>\n

wondered Alex as he finished his cup of tea. And he fell a splurge of joy through<\/p>\n

his nerves.<\/p>\n

His birthday was to be celebrated and all their relatives would arrive in the<\/p>\n

evening. Mom and daddy had taken their day off, as they had to make the<\/p>\n

arrangements for the evening. He had his breakfast and went off to school, for he<\/p>\n

could not afford to miss his classes.<\/p>\n

During recess all his friends were gossiping or playing but today, Alex was<\/p>\n

sitting alone and his thoughts drifted away to his dream of last night. He resolved<\/p>\n

firmly that he would never again quarrel or misbehave with his parents and his<\/p>\n

near and dear ones. At this point of his solitude, he knew, that, one day, the<\/p>\n

dream would become a sad reality; after many years, or decades may be, but it<\/p>\n

was inevitable and obvious. Till then, he promised to live happily and obediently.<\/p>\n

He wanted to cherish whatever good he had and decided he would never complain<\/p>\n

about insignificant discrepancies. He also made it a point to make his parents<\/p>\n

promise that they would never again waste the limited precious moments life had<\/p>\n

to offer by arguing. The dream had taught him a lesson. After all, he had a<\/p>\n

wonderful family and that was all he wished for.<\/p>\n

In the evening when he returned home, his relatives had already arrived.<\/p>\n

They all wished him and gave him presents. As they all gathered gossiping, Alex<\/p>\n

narrated his thoughts to all of them. In the end, he requested them to resolve that<\/p>\n

from then on, all of them would fill up life\u2019s moments cherishing the happiness of<\/p>\n

whatever good life had to offer.<\/p>\n

Later in the evening, as he was cutting his birthday cake surrounded by his<\/p>\n

near and dear ones he felt complete happiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have all the comfort and happiness. What more can one wish for ? It<\/p>\n

feels safer than the heaven\u2019s, Alex said to himself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Akash Dasgupta<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mother : A Symbol Of Solace   Alex was sitting quietly at the corner of the living room,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}