The Home – coming

Today she is coming home, the first time after the wedding.  My daughter and her husband.  Should I have said my daughter , and my son(in-law)?

But just at first ,it all seems so strange to me.  I must get used  to thinking of him as a son. The fact has yet got to register.

The wedding was over, just a couple of days ago, and the aftermath of the occasion, is still felt, and seen , around the house.  It is there, in the tang of the freshly painted doors and windows, the polished furniture, and the curtains and cushions that are crisply new.  Someone has spilled a little p0erfume somewhere, and its cloying smell is still  around.

The bride and the bridegroom are coming home today.

It seems but yesterday, that she was a child, romping about in short frocks.  I can still see her grinning, with heer front teeth missing.  Her bobbed hair, unruly, her shin often scratched, climbing that mango tree.  And then the lanky stage, with the hem  of   the frocks getting shorter, and hair now in pig-tails at the sides.  Even that stage passed, and now the child had become half girl, half woman, and we knew then that the sands were running out on childhood, and it was time we looked around for a suitable mate.So, the wedding bells.  So the wedding.

We stand on the porch awaiting their arrival – and there is a conglomeration  of conflicting emotions.  I am to tell the truth both happy  and sad.  Happy that we have done our best.  Given our daughter in marriage to a suitable boy. and that today, she comes home- my wedded daughter.  Sad? Yes, a little thread of sadness, tinges the joy ,just because of that .Because she is wedded, and the daughter who walks into the home today , will not be the girl she was, yesterday.

I remember other  times other days.  Other home-comings .  Away at boarding school, she would come home,running up the steps, with a spontaneous joy , glad to be home.  For then home was with us.  But now, home is with him. Eager to see us the parents , the brother, the two younger sisters , who are kids.  And she would be jabbering away, thirteen to the dozen, news of the school, what had we been doing, what ‘s for  tea, anything in the tin, what pictures are showing, where, are there guavas  on the tree, where’s Judy the dog ?and by jove , guess who has got selected to the district basketball team…. A kiss, a hug, and a sprint up the stairs.  But those were other times, other days, when she was still a child- Now, she comes home – a woman.

They have arrived.  They are coming.  She is dressed in a Kanchipuram sari, with a heavy border ,there are jasmines in her hair, chains on her neck, bangles on her wrist.  Not anymore in jeans or bells.  Staid and proper she comes. A little demure, a little shy. Still , there is a new light in her eye, a blush on heer cheeks.  Her steps match his.  She does not come running.  Not to-day.  Perhaps, not any more days.

And he , my son-in-law?  Perhaps, he finds it strange , as I do too, to have a mother -in-law  sprung on him….But when my daughter calls me , ma, he does likewise, albeit a little hesitant, a little diffident .  But I smile at them both and the awkwardness passes.

So, we go through the day.  Special dishes, special behavior.  The brother who used to tease her, with his own typical jokes, with an easy camaraderie, is inhibited to-day, and seems to have lost his bearings!  And the younger sisters too are intimidated by this new sister.  They just can’t get the hang of it  all.

We talk trying to dispel the strangeness.  Trying to put him at ease, to make him feel he belongs.  But are we really islands, unto ourselves?  We ask him relevant questions, wanting to know how our daughter will manage , in her new surroundings.  And perhaps he feels like a schoolboy on the mat.

My daughter used to sleep in the same room as the younger brother and one or other of the kid sisters used to share her bed.  But now there is another room, prepared  for them, with  a double-bed, and as they go to retire , the smallest one who hasn’t yet gone to sleep, throws a tantrum crying for her sister to sleep with her. I whisk her away, and the child cannot understand , why sister has to have a special room, unlike other times.

Their bedroom door is closed.  It seems strange .  For the first time in our home , our daughter sleeps,  with a door that is bolted. It sort of reminds me , mutely, that one chapter of her life  has closed. That childhood is left behind.  Nor can I awaken her in the mornings shaking her up ,for now she sleeps, with a man by her side.

So, it is, the old order changeth, yielding place to new , and so it is, our daughters leave us,.

As my daughter kisses me adieu, my throat constricts.  Farewell, my daughter, farewell, my son.  They smile at me, as they get into the car, that is to take them away.

And in my heart, The question arises.

Have I lost a daughter?

Or, have I gained a son?