Tasneem Noor Maisha
Nancy found herself momentarily immobile, starring into those small yet bewitching eyes of the little angelic infant in her lap. The infant broke into a soothing cackle, filling her entire being with tranquility. As if the small being were the eighth wonder of the world, Nancy took turns in contemplating the beauty of every little aspect of the tiny soul wrapped in a woolen cloth in an attempt to savour the overwhelming joy of motherhood all at once. Nancy named her “Angel”.
Nancy had not forgotten the ominous day when her doctor had informed her that she could never conceive a child in her womb. Under the ghastly weight of those wicked words, her whole life had been shattered. She had held back her tears—not out of shock—but because she had no one to blame. This was her fight. No one was a shareholder of her excruciating pain. She had accepted this life. But time ran its own course of dilemma. It was not long before she started feeling like an incomplete being—a fruitless tree that had nothing to provide for. The yearning was unmistakably evident in her eyes when she saw mothers taking the baby steps of learning how to nurture a child–running restlessly after their children in a futile attempt to make them finish their Cerelac meal; scolding them in mock frustration occasionally, but mostly caressing them with immense affection. But Nancy had no one—no one to run after, no one to feed, no one to scold and no one to love more than her own self.
Years after the arrival of the dire news, she decided that just because she could not conceive a child in her womb did not mean that she could not become a mother. She decided to adopt a child. But the adoption services were of no help either. For some unknown reason, none of those organisations approved her plea.
“I’m extremely sorry Ma’am, but we don’t really think a single mother could take care of a child on her own. Why don’t you consider marrying?” – a matron there said.
Nancy did not reply. Who would willingly marry a “barren” woman? The fact that she was a multi-millionaire was not enough for the world to trust her with the responsibility of a child and as for the fact that she could not conceive, it was unacceptable. She was tired of being devastated. Now, she felt like laughing at her own fate. So be it. Just when she convinced herself and became ready to accept the brutality of her fate, the call came.
A friend of her had found out about a family that was willing to give away one of their five children due to their terrible financial instability. Nancy would only get to serve as a foster mother to the child, and that too only for the first eighteen years of the child’s life, after when her custody would be given back to her parents, if, as an adult, she wanted to.
It would not be wrong to say that she literally broke into a frantic run when she saw Mrs. Kelley, the biological mother of Angel, approach. It seemed as if the world around her had changed with the blink of an eye when Mrs. Kelley gave Angel to her. The sadness—the cursed despair and longing had gone—and happiness seeped into the voided space. And then came the tears–tears of despondency that had been restrained for years now became tears of blissful joy. The essence of motherhood was not that simple after all—she knew now.
You do not have to bear a child in your womb to become a mother—Angel’s arrival in her life had taught her that. She resolved to herself that she would leave no stone unturned in endeavoring to fight against all odds and fill Angel’s life with boundless joy, the way Angel had filled her one.
(Tasneem Noor Maisha is a student of class— ix)
