Life's A Long Journey

Beyond The Clouds...
I was waiting with my mother for our turn at a doctor’s chamber. She too was waiting for her turn. I had seen her earlier too, at the same place. We only smiled at each other on the other occasions. She was accompanied by her son who was perpetually talking on his cell-phone. Bored, she struck up a conversation with us. Her husband was admitted in the hospital and she had come to talk to the doctor about her husband’s progress to health. They had been married almost 46 years ago. She did not meet her husband till everything was fixed by the families. There was no going back then. She told me that she always visualized a husband who was dapper likeDev Anand but her husband,well...( all she did was smile sheepishly).

But, good girls did not defy their families, so she got married to the guy with loads of regrets about what may have been. Initially, though she never showed it, she was full self pity. But as time flew she realized how unwise she was in her judgment. With an impish smile on her face, she told me, how her some of her friends were almost jealous of the way her husband looked after her. He made sure that she was always treated with respect by everyone in the family, even by their own kids. When their second kid was born (they were on a foreign posting) he took care of the home & the older kid leaving her to concentrate on the new-born & herself. Today, she feels her husband was God’s greatest gift to her. She is especially thankful that she did not voice her displeasure when marriage negotiations were on, otherwise who knows what kind of man she would have been married to. She acknowledges that in the success of their long & happy marriage her husband’s contribution was more than hers. And, she added tongue in cheek, the men of her husband’s age all look more or less the same today, no matter how good-looking they were in their youth.
This encounter reminded me of what Sister Adele ,Principal of our school, used to tell us ----- instead of fretting at the sight of the cloud look for the sun behind it & you shall see the rainbow appear.