Of mothers I admire

I didn’t get a chance to get to know my mother-in-law. From all the stories I have heard about her, I know she was a force to be reckoned with. Sifting through drawers and hundreds of scribbled notes and diaries after her passing gave me a glimpse into the woman she was—a way of spending some additional time with her, perhaps.

The second eldest of all her siblings, Fatima Rodricks was fondly thought of as “small mama” in her Mazgaon neighbourhood. She is survived by her elder sister, a younger brother and twin sisters. If you ask them, they always turned to her for advice, gossip and general commentary on how to live their lives, which shouldn’t be surprising considering what she did for a living.

A secretary at first, she was promoted to office administrator soon enough. And although she never really liked her boss—a truth she told me on multiple occasions—she didn’t let it affect her work ethic. I remember the first time my husband—then boyfriend—brought me home to meet his mom. She asked me what I did for a living and where I worked. I could tell she considered work an integral part of life. She was one of the few women in that generation of the ideology: “there was time for everything else later”. She herself got married at the tail end of her thirties—once her siblings were happily married. 

A little ways down the road, when my visits to their home got more frequent, she opened up to me about her personal life, too. Fatima wasn’t unnerved by the curve balls life threw at her—and by the looks of it, there were quite a few. “That’s life,” she said, casually after describing the horrific accident her father died in. “You can’t sit around crying when these things happen. You have to move on.” Her stories left me slack-jawed, struck by her sheer mettle.

After she retired, she dedicated her life to fighting the good fight. Her husband, my dear father-in-law, who was unable to pick up a dispute with a local Goan thug/political figure over a plot of family land, entrusted his wife to get the job done. She would proudly tell me of all that she accomplished on her visits to Goa, and how she would summon the bully (who wasn’t beyond posing death threats) to be accountable before higher authorities. In her lifetime, she had battled cancer, raised two kids—one with cerebral palsy—had unwavering faith in God and our justice system, and punched way beyond her weight.  

She had a flair for fashion, too. Sorting through her wardrobe, we found a chiffon scarf with every outfit she curated. I can still see her in that hospital bed, putting on her lipstick and running a comb through her hair before every test or doctor visit. “That’s my daughter-in-law,” she would point to me out to the doctors, proudly, despite my unkempt hair. While I tried hard to look civilised, she looked presentable even in pale blue hospital gowns. 

Fatima Rodricks was 75 when she died. Her last birthday was spent with those closest to her and me who insisted on singing happy birthday and opening presents in front of everyone—a tradition she didn’t care for. She got to witness her eldest son get married, which was a blessing. But two months later, she breathed her last. I still think about her everyday and am still haunted by the ‘what ifs’. I wonder what shape our lives would have taken if she had made it through that final battle in the hospital that lasted more than a month. And while I may never fully know the answer to my questions, I can still hear her voice saying, “Life happens. You have to move on.”

I know that she would’ve wanted me to wipe my tears and face life with an unencumbered philosophy that she lived by every day.