My Most Beautiful Thing

by Anita Menon

When I think of ‘My Most Beautiful Thing”, I close my eyes and try to conjure up various images of people, places, moments frozen in time, of situations good and bad, of being successful and of possessions. In my mind, it feels like a reel of a movie moving with a clickity- click sound. The first image is of my daughter, Mimi smiling, then comes the park where Mimi and I chased after each other, of a time when I held her for the first time, of the time when she cried the nights away because she was a colicky baby and of the day I decided to take a break from work to be with Mimi, of the feeling where I have felt that she was all I wanted and she was all mine. There isn’t a single other image that comes into my mind. Mimi dominated every single frame, back to back.

In my opinion, everybody has that moment in life, when their life undergoes an incredible transformation. For me, having Mimi has been that supremely important time in my life where I completely changed as a person and my outlook changed forever. Things that made me fret earlier, make me laugh now. She filled my consciousness with a divine light and unending love. She taught me how to love with a tremendous capacity without asking anything in return. I feel, this is the closest I can ever get to what people call God.

 When the world is going crazy around me, I come home to her after a hard day’s work and she runs to me with all the glee on her face. All the stress gets archived automatically in unknown folders in the deepest recesses of my brain. The clouds clear and her sunny smile shines down on me. World’s a beautiful place when Mimi smiles. She even solves problems for me and my hubby. Mimi doesn’t like the sound of an argument and immediately plants herself between my hubby and me, shouting, ” Guys!! Guys!!” . We are forced to stop our bickering and give her our complete attention and looking at her lovely face full of concern makes us laugh. That puts an end to any argument however insinuating it might have had the potential to be.

It is said that something that gives us unsurpassed joy, also becomes the source of immeasurable pain. My heart has been a witness to this innumerable times whenever Mimi was sick or when she had to be even vaccinated. It literally tears my soul apart to see her cry or in pain. All I wish during that time is for all that hurt and tears to come to me and that life’s trials should spare my child.  I realize that in life she would have to weather many storms to see a clear day but for that moment, I would like to weather all those stormy nights for her.

I know she is looking out for me when she seeks me out in my pensive moods. She forces me to dance my blues away with her on the most ridiculous songs playing on the local radio channel. Another wonderful thing we do together is to sing songs aloud like there’s no one around and we watch our favourite animation movies together. That is her way of saying, don’t think too much, just enjoy and be with the moment.

As it is pretty evident, Mimi is my muse, my inspiration, my strength and my weakness, all the same. As the movie reel in my head keeps doing a clickity – click, I still see only Mimi doing what she does, playing, running, jumping around, hugging, painting, going to school, demanding an unfair share of ice cream and spitting out her greens. I am so looking forward to this beautiful journey with you, Mimi. This post only captures a fraction of what I truly feel for you. But whatever little, someday, in the future, when you read this, you would know how much I love you.