12/02/2024
Letter to mother-in-law from old age home....
Respected mother,
I have never told you this "mother" word from my heart. Today you have the desire to write a letter. So I started writing letters to you under the open sky. Don't know if this letter will reach you! I belong to the old age home you breathed your last. Luckily I'm in the room you stayed in. That's why I'm missing you today. I have lost the right to apologize. Still writing this letter if you forgive.
Since I got married, I saw you kept the family in your hands. I couldn't stand it, felt like I was locked up but didn't realize how much it needed to have a parent over the head. When you said- "take as much as you eat, don't harm" I felt disgusting but now I understand you didn't say any bad words!
You didn't ask me to stay without eating. He was refusing to do losses. I feel so disgusted when your son handed over your monthly salary, I thought how to get rid of you! To get rid of you I beg to your son I will go with him to his workplace. Even if you don't allow your son first, I'll adjust it later, cry. Was pretty good with both of them, but when I'm introspective, the doctor asks me to take bed rest. Then your son brings you to our rented house. You used to do all the household chores, you used to serve me, yet you seemed disbearable to me. I have a baby boy too. My baby keeps growing up slowly. Always granny granny, I hate hearing this sound granny. I admit my son in English medium school. But you keep telling all the poems and stories of Bengali medium. The boy will study in Bangla Medium School by sitting stubbornly. I couldn't accept this for nothing. We had two rooms in our rented house, one me and your son lived, the other one my son is you. Needed another room because the boy is growing. Me and your son have argued that we will sell houses and lands in the country and build our own house here. You weren't signing anything, it says it's your father-in-law's Vita, there's a lot of memories of you. Finally you signed it. I wouldn't have made you anyway. So determined to send you to old age home. That time my son fell in hostel, so didn't know anything about you.
I was good for a few years after sending you to the old age home. One day I got the news on the phone that you are no more, I said in my mind, let's be saved. After that the son grew up, got married. First of all I thought I am not a ghost like you, so my wife will be similar to me. But it didn't happen, I was repeating history, I would have been my wife's with the same thing I argued with you. Suddenly your son gets a stroke, and he leaves me forever. They weren't liking the house your son built, my wife wants to be in the flat. So planning to break down house and build flats. My son and daughter-in-law tells me that if you build a flat they will take two flats and pay the remaining rent, it will bring a lot of money. I didn't want to sign anything like you. But my son cried and finally signed. A big flat was built after demolishing the house. That flat had two rooms and a kitchen. I told my son- what is my room? Son said mom what do you need in your room? You'll be in the girls room with our daughter. Staying in granddaughter room with granddaughter, granddaughter misbehave with me as she grows, she actually wants her own room. So my son and daughter-in-law fixed to keep me in old age home.
I'm at the old age home today, the old age home you were. What a joke of fate, I never thought this would happen to me, hot blood, hot money, and heat of youth we forget everything. I forget nothing is permanent in this world. If I understood this earlier I wouldn't have to see this day. I'm screaming at the sky and looking at the shining stars- "Mother, please forgive me if you can".
Yours
The shameless daughter-in-law.
The diary of the last story
