My Mom's Lost Jewelry

Last week was horrible. None of us could sleep or even do our daily chores at home peacefully, because my mom's most important gold jewelry has gone missing.

I and my mom share the same bank locker to keep our respective jewelries safe. Although, I only have the access to the locker, we had no problems in sharing our valuables till date.
I usually bring the jewelries from the bank whenever there is a need, and then leave everything in a cupboard in mom's room.
Because, I know how my personal cupboards are messy.

Last Monday, when I was about to take the jewels back to the locker, my mom noted something is missing.
She went through all the pouches, and then started to panic by digging through the cupboard in search of that missing jewelry pouch.
She is already very old (67), weak and has lots of health issues like BP, thyroid etc. With this tension, her BP seemingly gone up. I did try my best to look for that pouch, but all in vain.
Looking at her pathetic condition, I too felt helpless. I could do nothing other than worrying for my mom by sitting at the office cabin the whole day.

Now a little background about this jewelry.

My mom does not have much jewelries. She had sold most of her jewelries for her children (my bro and sis) for their personal needs. But once all her children were married and settled, mom decided to keep her remaining jewelries as a security. In her words, these jewelries are her retirement plan.
Even though we (me and my bro) take full charge of our mom's financial needs, she feels secure only with these little asset, which makes her independent in her own ways.
She usually keeps her jewels in two different pouches. One contained usable jewelries, which she access frequently. The other pouch contains bigger jewelries, including her thaali, which she no longer uses.
Sadly the unusable pouch has gone missing. This shattered my mom.

She cried inconsolably that day, and went on to blame God to some extent. In fact, she has never done that before. It made me very sad, at the same time I was wondering why is she behaving like this?

I worried so much for my mom. Even though we searched throughout the entire house, we could not find any traces of this jewelry pack.
I know that my mom used to help her buddies by giving this pack of jewelries to pawn. They would pawn it to make some money to meet their urgent needs; then they will redeem, and give it back to her with thanks.
She has done this favor a several times for her son, her bro and her best friend. But we could not remember any such requests in the recent times.

That day, mom hardly eaten anything. She was at the bed so early, cursed her fate, and eventually blabbered of something, which terrified me.

You all know that I don't have my dad. He left us so suddenly due to a silent heart attack about 9 years back.
His demise has changed me upside down. I still feel low and helpless for being irresponsible with my dad when he was alive.
I regret for not being able to gift him anything even though I had started earning by then, and even gave my pay ch to dad.
Despite knowing very well that dad wouldn't use my money to meet his needs, I still went on carelessly about gifting him anything. Perhaps, I thought that he would live with me forever, perhaps, I would get another chance to gift him. I took the time for granted, but fate proved me wrong.
Dad left us.
I have so much money, but I could not buy even a bar of chocolate for my dad now.
Likewise, I regret for screaming with dad, and arguing with him for no reason. I know that he was so matured and never kept grudges for that. But I regret for not having cherished my time with my dad when he was alive.
I had a long speech at my dad's funeral, and everyone else was in tears after learning my untold love for him. But I regret that my dad could never hear them from me.

With all these regrets, I take good care of my mom. I ensure she sleeps peacefully and happy every day even though there are misunderstanding and arguments between us. I let go of my ego, and patch up with mom by thinking she is old, insecure or whatever. But I should not regret for making her cry in any case God has other plans for her.

I always buy her gifts, and make sure she gets some or the other gift from me every month, right after my salary. She cherishes them. She feels proud about them, and talks proudly about them with her peers.
This gives me an immense satisfaction. Because I know the most satisfying thing on earth is to see your elderly parent's smile, and to know that you are the reason for their smiles.

But, I was mad that I could do nothing to stop my worrying mom. That night was awful.

The next day, I took a day off from work.
Then I decided to take my mom to all the banks in town, with the ID numbers of mom's buddies who usually pawn the jewelry.
Since they were close buddies, we could not directly ask them whether they have redeemed it or not. We know that it was our fault, we must have kept track on our jewels. But we could not just let go of it either.
But no bank gave us any positive answer.
It means either the jewelries are not kept/pawned in the banks, or they were redeemed or they were sold in the auction.
It further shattered us.

But by the end of the tiring day, my mom looked calm. She said, "if God wants to take something from us, we must let that leave".
She further said, "Many people sell their gold and properties over an incurable illness, or business loss. This way, they lose both the jewelry as well as their health, business. In our case, we have just lost the jewelry. So, let it be.

Mom's calmness made me think rational. It worked my frozen mind, and in the next few minutes, I ran towards her saree cupboard.
I remember she used to tie the jewelries in one of her sarees in a systematic way, so that no thief could identify it.
She usually does that before we have opened this locker.
But occasionally, she keeps her jewels like this. Eg: Whenever she gets back the pawned jewels from her buddies just after I have kept everything (other jewels) in the locker. In such situations, she keeps the jewels safely in the sarees, till I go back to the locker.

My instinct said that she may have completely forgotten to take back the jewelry pack from the sarees, as she neither uses the jewelries, nor the sarees.

Although she has already looked through the saree cupboard, I went on to unfold each saree aggressively.
Thank God, after a few mins of intense search, I found a heavy saree with different style of folding. When opened, it contained all the missing jewelries.
I was so happy. It was the most happiest day for me in recent times.
No doubt that I have also made my mom happy.

Later that day, when we we met at the kitchen over the dinner, my mom said 'Thanks".
She said that she always wanted to share her remaining jewels with me, as a compensation to her poor decision of not giving me anything when I got married against her wish.
She has however shared her inheritance and money with her other children.
During my wedding times, neither she gave me anything, nor I asked.
She never thought that she will end up living with me (In a house where her SNIL is all different from her religion/caste/country), but fate brought her here as a permanent resident.
This often makes her guilt, as she feels she is a burden to me.
She always wanted to give me something, but not sure how and when. So, she kept it with her as a will that I get all her jewels upon her demise.
She panicked when this jewel pack was gone missing. She says, the loss made her as a looser that she worried she will never be able to give me anything.

That brought me tears. Why should my mom give me anything after all?
She is my everything. My siblings may have blessed with her assets. But I am blessed to live with her. I am blessed to eat her food and enjoy her motherly care every day.
She is even a super mother to my kids. Because of her, I am shining as a career oriented woman today?

Does she still thinks her jewelry pack is more valuable than her?

 

Thank you so much ladies for the complements. I am in fact moved.

In fact, I intended to vent here, as I was overwhelmed with mixed emotions with this matter. It reminded me of my dad, my mom and their love, and everything. But the write up turned out to be beautiful. I am happy to know that i was able to reach your hearts through this one.

Thanks a lot for the blessings.