By Vijaya Jayasuriya
‘Don’t do anything to damage your eyes. You can remember what the doctor said in advice!’ Dayani admonished her mother before leaving home that morning to go to work. "Don’t forget that I spent a fortune on your eye without even thinking of my own failing sight!’
‘Ok.. Ok.. I’ll be careful’ the mother rejoined acquiescing to her daughter’s restraints on her conduct.
She had been a teacher before retirement and was intelligent enough not to repulse her daughter’s insolent remarks. She had taken a lot of pains to get this girl a good education from her childhood, yet she lacked intelligence and was too recalcitrant too into the bargain, and could not pass her ‘A’ levels adequately.
It was she who spent a fortune including even her salary arrears as well for Dayani to attend various courses like on typing and shorthand. It was through a friend’s husband the she succeeded in getting for her daughter a clerical post in a private firm.
Dayani turned more and more adamant following her separation from her husband who left her in the lurch with the burden of a little daughter too. She shouted at her daughter as well as her mother at the slightest provocation and rarely did she have the mindset for a joyful exchange with them.
The situation worsened when the mother began losing her eyesight gradually, and as a result had to be helped when going out, particularly on her monthly visit to the bank to get her pension.
‘Mind the steps... there are two...’ Dayani would say with a rough edge to her voice ‘can’t you see even that.’
‘Ok... I’ll manage...’
‘Manage you can... I know. I’ll have to get the people to lift you up...’
The mother had got accustomed to this kind of derogatory words as she was being walked on outings.
‘Let her go on like that. I know she is justified in this attitude of hers...’ the mother was contemplating. ‘Her life is more unsatisfactory than mine. I had a good job and have been satisfied with everything... so let her express her disappointment that way... poor thing...’ the mother kept on thinking.
‘I have my own problem reading. Sometimes my vision is blurred and I find it very difficult to read certain documents I get to work on in the office. Particularly when they are not properly printed in very tiny script... Dayani began to grouse.
‘So why don’t you get your cataract operation done?’ mother rejoined.
‘How can I... your case is more serious than mine... sometimes it is a terrible hassle for me to help you walk...’
‘Why was she shouting this morning? Iskole hamine...’ Sopinona in the neighbourhood queried when Dayani went to work.
The teacher smiled and replied: ‘Just nothing, Sopie... that’s her way. You know...’ knowing that Sopihamy meant no insult by asking about their private matter. It was the teacher who taught Sopihamy to sign her name to get her W&OP payment after her husband’s death.
‘Life is like that... Iskole hamine... Now look at my young one. She is working abroad for more than two years now and she sends me not a red cent... just survive with my man’s pension...’
‘Then what about your elder daughter?’
‘She can’t help me with her brood of children... Her husband is a garage hand no.... He’s getting very little money...’
‘How is your younger sister Gunawathi?’ the teacher enquired after the little known of the two sisters.
‘Ah... that’s another case. She is in that elders’ home for a long time now. Her son and two daughters put her there about ten years ago and they don’t even go there to see her... I go to see her once in a while... what can I do after all...’
‘My... why do they treat her like that... that’s too bad no...’ the teacher expressed her shock about this unkind attitude of the children of this poor woman.
‘Are they happy there in that elders’ home?’ the teacher wanted to know.
‘What are you talking iskole hamine? Only parents keep their love for children and so they keep, suffering with that unrequited love...’
The teacher heaved a deep sigh of relief as she heard about this terrible situation created by children for their own parents and felt contented about her own lot. How her own daughter treats her with at least some kindness without leaving her to suffer such a destiny as was related by Sopihamy looked a great consolation.
As getting her mother’s eye surgery at the government hospital took much time waiting in a long queue, Dayani decided to take her to a private hospital. Since a lens giving both the distant sight and the reading ability cost a big sum she opted for the low priced lens meant only for a general improvement of the vision. For reading to improve she could get her specs altered accordingly.
However Dayani kept complaining ever since her mother’s eye operation as her own eye sight was diminishing gradually.
‘I wonder if I will be compelled to leave my job and stay at home without working! But if I do that I won’t be getting any retiring payment as early as this...’
‘Don’t do that...’ the mother desisted seeing the danger of her daughter’s living without a job. She is saddled with two burdens – one herself and then her own little one to look after. The child required a sizeable amount of money for her extra classes etc. And it was unimaginable how those expenditures could be met without a job.
‘You shouldn’t have worried about my eye-sight while having the same problem yourself... you should have got it done with that money... in vain I let you do this...’ the teacher lamented.
‘No no... that would have been worse. How can I keep taking you for this and that with that horrible eye sight you had. Now I’m relieved of that at least. I can get mine done with a loan I’m going to apply for... but only thing is it takes sometime... like six months...’
It was being worried about her daughter’s plight that the teacher started to rack her brains trying to find a solution for it herself. She wore only her pair of ear-studs and the wedding ring while the necklace and the two bracelets she only took out for a special occasion like a weeding o a close relative.
Enjoying the ecstasy of gaining the new sight she soon resumed her favourite pastime of reading which she had been compelled to abandon more than ten years ago. She had lost her sight when her own husband passed away. Leslie who was a school principal had mooted the idea of getting her eye operation done when he unexpectedly died of a sudden illness.
It was when she was rummaging among his possessions not even touched ever since his demise that the teacher stumbled upon several bank pass books. They were only handled by Leslie and she had not taken a look at them even after his death due to her poor eye-sight.
Most of the books had been cancelled having reached the last page and as she went on flipping pages of the books one by one, she came upon a fresh-looking one where there were several blank pages left. Her heart filled with feelings of gratitude to the doctor who brought back her vision and the last page printed contained an amount with six digits: 450000!
‘My goodness!’ She exclaimed in an involuntary gush of ecstasy remembering how she used to leave these books only to the perusal of her husband. She was now so exultant that she could not believe her own eyes and went on to count the number of digits against and again, recalling the good old days when she was teaching arithmetic to primary classes.
‘Now Dayani can get her eye-surgery done... thank god!’ saying so she felt so happy that she could not wait until Dayani came home that evening, and hurried to the phone to give her the good news immediately.
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