Gift Of Love

I spotted this contest and found it quite interesting. But then soon I had forgotten about it. Today suddenly my mom asked me if I had submitted for it. I gave her a blank look. Hours later, having nothing to do, I sat on the couch with my laptop. The blinking cursor was starting at me. Seconds turned into minutes, minutes were turning into an hour but there screen was still blank. What should I write about, I thought. I don’t remember interesting anecdotes about my childhood which was some twenty years ago. Friends? No help. Fellow bloggers? Well, most of them are either sharing their own stories about their kids or are struggling like me. Brainstorming I dozed off on the couch itself.
An hour later when I woke up, mom was nowhere to be found. A glint of light from the store room upstairs caught my eye. I reached there to see mom sitting by the big iron box. The box was said to be mom’s treasure of memories.
“What are you doing here, mom?” I asked giving her the water bottle which I was holding.
“Oh, nothing much! Just came here to look for something but got stuck when I saw this old album” she smiled as she answered. She gulped some water.
“Wow! Show me please!” I sat down next to her, crossing my legs.
I slowly flipped through the album. I smiled as I saw those marriage pictures of mom and dad.
“Marriages were so simple in those days!” I observed and then I saw my mother blush a little.
Towards the end of the album, I had made the appearance in my rare childhood pictures. I always complained that I had fewer photos of childhood when compared to my sister’s. “Owning a camera wasn’t a fashion in those days, my darling “, my mom would say.
” How cute!” I exclaimed on seeing a photo myself. I was looking so adorable, lost in my own world. A sheet of paper was lying in front of me and crayons were spread all around. Yet it didn’t look even a bit messy. For me, I was holding a color palette in my left hand and a brush in right, all set to paint the masterpiece with my little hands.
“I never saw this one before. How old am I in this photo?” I asked still looking at the photo.
“You must have been five or six. Your dad’s birthday was round the corner. You had been asking for my color palette but I denied obviously. I would ask you the reason and you would run away not wanting to share your plan. Then one day when I was busy in the kitchen and you took the advantage to quietly sneak out of the room with all the colors and went to sit in the veranda. But unfortunately for you, I reached there a few minutes later. I asked you what you were up to. I still remember the exact words.”
“What were they?”
“You had said ‘I want to give the best gift to daddy! So I wanted to paint this card’. And your innocence melted my heart straight away and I sat down to help you create your masterpiece.”
Meanwhile my hungry sister shouted from downstairs, breaking our reverie. We packed up fast and walked downstairs.
“You know what?” My mom broke the silence suddenly.
“What?”
“In your innocence you taught me what we ignore as we grow up, we forget the importance of love. We are so busy grabbing the gifts for each other but we forget that love is the greatest gift of all”, she said.
” True mom!”, I said.
“Now you know why that’s my favorite photo”, she added as she entered the kitchen to cook something delicious.

Thank you Kellogg’s Chocos for helping me dig out this moment of happiness.