Leaving

All my bags are packed and I'm ready to leave….

Am I really ready to leave? My little feller is hugging and clinging onto me so… virtually disappearing into me. His slim, elegant frame, so deer-like, his classically beautiful face, so doleful. This is my seven year old son, we've never ever been separated before. He says, "have a good time mum and say 'hello' to Uncle and Aunt and my cousins for me". But what he does not say speaks louder.

Ever since he came into our lives, he has always travelled with his mum - five months old, a year old, two, three, four, five six years old - we've travelled to the ends of the world, but always together. This little fellow who was breast-fed till he was a year and half years old. Mum used to be the most important person in his life - perhaps not the most important, he loved his nanny as much - but, mum belonged to him first. He could not bear to have anyone else feature more largely in her life. To him, mum and he were created together, she was all his - dad, big brother and the rest of the extended family came a poor second. "Dad, get out of this bed, she is mine and mine alone".

In the last two years however changes have come about. Nanny's left and mum's short tempered, she frighten's him when she's in that mood. He runs to his dad for warmth and comfort and he gets plenty there - mum has over time been explaining to him how important dad is in their lives and how gentle and loving he is. As for big brother, that again is another special relationship, a strong bond that formed straight away as soon as he came into this world. But big brother is away too - working away from home, he has had to leave the nest.

That's not to say that he still does not go to his mother, he does, but he appears to be less possessive and less enamoured of her and he does not keep repeating, "I love you", every 2 seconds like he did when he was two and three.

"Oh God, have I made the wrong decision? Is my little boy going to be OK? I'm going to be away for a month, a whole month!"

But they need me there, badly - there is a wedding coming up and my brother has just had a heart attack, my sweet sister-in-law is not getting any younger. Here at home, we are better settled in now after re-locating to Bangalore. The house is almost fully set-up and running fairly smoothly. I have a reliable maid, who will cook for them and keep house whilst I'm away. As for school-lunches, I've made batches of various things he likes and all are now in the freezer in small portions that he can take with him to school every day. His dad is there for him when he's not at school.

It's too late to turn the clock back. Decisions have been made and I must go. He nuzzles me all the way to the airport. I hold him close to my bosom. He is so little. I just hope he'll keep well and not fall ill whilst I am away. So too my dear husband who has always come up trumps for me whenever I have had to make hard decisions. I reason that, considering my temperament, the little one is probably going to be more emotionally stable with his father than with me. He would have been feeling a lot worse if it was his father who had to go away for a whole month. We will be calling each other almost every day while I'm away, a month will fly and then I'll be home again, home with this lovely pair. I sigh, my cup of joy would have been complete if our first-born was also with us rather than far away.