98. Time spent with my Mother-in-Law 😊😊 – Part 1

It all started sometime during the end of August.  Since my mother was away to stay with my brother in Jakarta, my wife wanted to call her mother to our home and make her stay with us.  Her mother was staying with her son in Bangalore at that time.  Both my wife and her brother were debating as to who will escort her to our place.  Both were not able to take time out from their busy schedule😊.  Fortunately, I was traveling to Bangalore to attend to a relative’s wedding and I offered to bring her with me.  That is how she came to our house and stayed with us for 2 months or so.

She is around 80 years of age and usually stays with her two sons alternately, one in Chennai and the other in Bangalore.  She can walk on her own and uses a cane for support while walking.  She will be around 5.1 or 5.2 feet.  Since she is forgetful, she is not allowed in the kitchen to cook anything.  Almost all of her time at our house was spent only on these things: -

•        Seeing Tamil serials on TV, mostly on Vijay TV
•       Writing “Sriramajayam” in a diary in such a minute way that it looks like a design on the page.  (by the way she has written more than 4-5 lakhs of this word over a large number of diaries and notebooks!!) 
•        Working on sewing machine and 
•       Sleeping😊!! Obviously when you are 80, this is the best thing to do, having spent all your life taking care of others!!

Since my mother was not here, her room was empty.  Due to some issues in my leg, my doctor had advised me not to climb the stairs.  So, I was staying in the ground floor and was using my mother’s room while my wife and kid were using the room in the first floor of my house.  When my mother-in-law came, naturally we could not ask her to stay in the first-floor as she cannot climb the stairs.  Eventually it turned out that we put her in my mother’s room and I had to look for alternatives!!  So, I got a bed from the second floor and put in the Hall so that I can also sleep on a proper bed😊.  That’s what happens in life – you have your own 3-storied house and still have to sleep in the Hall😊😊!!

She is a very sweet lady with a very low voice.  Even if she shouts, which is very rare, or when she calls out for my wife or my daughter (never me😊) from her room, it would seem that someone is calling but we will be wondering as to who is calling and from where😊.  After 2-3 shouts from her, we will be convinced that she is the one who is calling and I will tell my wife that she is being called for😊!!  Even when she is aware that her voice is not going to go far, she will still shout for the person.  My wife and daughter would be on the 1^st floor, and she will be shouting from the ground floor for them.  I will then tell her that my wife has gone to office and daughter is off to school!!  Even if they were there in the house, I will have to call for them using my voice, before they will respond😊.

She generally watched TV right from about 12pm to around 1 or 2am😊.  The TV would be running constantly and she will be busy doing all the work mentioned above, including sleeping😊.  She will not properly lie down and sleep; she will just fall asleep while writing in the diary!!  And it will look like she would be about to fall, as she will lean to one side for sleeping😊.  Fortunately, she never fell even when it seemed that anytime she is going to fall.  I pointed this out to my wife.  She said to leave her alone and let her mother do whatever she wants.  She is after all 80+years old.  Let her do whatever she wants to do at this age. 

Sometimes, when I see her sleeping, I will go to her room and switch off the TV and the lights.  After a few minutes or an hour, she will wake up and then put on the TV and continue with her work😊.   Sometimes, during late night, when I have to use the restroom, I will enter her room and find that the TV and lights are on, her pen poised on the diary to write the next word and she is sleeping by leaning on one side😊.  I generally call out and wake her up at this time and ask her to lie down properly.  She will immediately get up and say she will go to sleep in another half an hour after the movie finishes😊.  I will leave her after that.  In the morning I will find that she will be sleeping and the TV and lights would be off.  I presume she would have switched off all these, sometime during the night and slept off😊!!

The encounters with my mother-in-law continue in the next blog too😊😊

 Cheers!!

Today’s Daffy Definition

 Fashion – Something that goes in one year and out the other!!