When I lost my mother three years ago, what I lost essentially was the woman in my life. With no sisters or daughters, I am surrounded by men, my father, brother, husband, sons. It took me a while to realize what I have been missing and how I have been trying to fill the void. Suddenly, there has been a splurge in the number of girl-friends I made. I seem to easily make friends with women now than ever before in my life. I tended to have more guys as friends than girls, till I had my mom around me. She was my friend and took any form or shape of all the girl friends I could ever have. When she left, I realize after three years, that I have been trying to fill the void by making more girl friends or trying to find facets of her personality in my girl friends. Is that what it is? Every person we cross paths with in our life carries a facet of another, in the end everyone nullifying each other? It’s a strange thought, but probably true.

Every human being needs a balance of men and women. It is not by number but the sum total of the weight of the relationship. You can have just one man and one woman, and they might balance out, sometimes you need more men or more women to balance the one woman or one man in your life.

Although I understand the reality, the child in me yearns for her. I’ve lived with this person for thirty seven years before she decided to take off. That is an awful lot of time to be used to one person. She was a habit. It is tough. There are times when I really want to talk to her, see what she thinks, maybe. Simply have her listen so I could draw strength just from her silence. That is what she was, my strength. Now at times when I realize that I have to dig out my own strength and the source exists virtually, there is a sudden onset of weakness. And I scream in my mind, ‘where are you?’.

The only most hardest and most bitter truth is death. Birth is another truth but thats a happy one and filled with hope, so it slips down the ladder. Death is a sad one and lingers on, surging in strength at times, making it the hardest truth. There is nothing you can do about it, but accept it. Everything else can be altered, worked around, convince yourself about, except death. It is the end, the physical end. As each day passes after, the truth just gets stronger and stronger. You realize that although you want to hope, you cannot. The most helpless state.

In one friend of mine I see many facets of my mother since the day my mother passed. It maybe my mind playing games with me, because I am so desperate to fill the void. This friend has spent quite some time with my mother, so she knows her. I believe that there is a purpose for each person in one’s life. Everyone walks in for a reason. There is something you draw from each other, always. You don’t understand the reason why some people are in your life until many years. Each relationship takes its time to enlighten you of its purpose. In the last couple of years, I think I may have found the purpose of my friend. She probably walked beside me these past eighteen years to give me strength at a time, when my central source called it quits. It is not a replacement, it never is. When the void is filled even by an inch, the mind calms down, atleast for a bit.

To her!