I don’t think we ever saw eye to eye
About anything under the great blue sky;
In fact, as Dad often says:
We were a pair of book-ends, looking opposite ways.

But now, as I see my own child grow
In a mould that I, oh! so intimately know,
I’ve come to realize so many things
About the joys and the angst that motherhood brings.

And yearn for the days when I’d dump every care
In your lap, and relax, ‘coz ‘Mamma is there’!
You were my harbour when I floundered amidst woes;
My bulwark against life’s cruellest blows.

The one who rejoiced more than me in my joy:
Whose unconditional love nothing could alloy;
Whose eyes showered love and benedictions in my life;
Whose strength gives me courage in my hours of strife.

If I can do a tithe of all this for my child,
My life as a mother would have been worthwhile.

This was written for my Mom in 2003, when I was in USA with my husband and she was undergoing chemotherapy in India. It was subsequently published in an anthology of poems by Poetry.com and won their Editors’ Choice Award.