“Why is Madam so silent ”? The Uber driver was curious because he was having an interesting conversation with my husband, and there I was, sitting in the back seat of the car, lost in my own thoughts.
My husband replied to him: ”She's sad that she left our daughter here and we are leaving back home without her. It's the first time in her life she's gonna live without her … both mom and daughter are inseparable”.
That comment made me cry again uncontrollably. What would she be doing now?
Still standing next to the window looking down to see whether her parents are coming back to take her back … I can think of anything now…
I would have stayed back here with her if I had an option, but there's none like that and no mother will ever do that. 
Every parent faces this phase in their life one way or the other when their kids grow up. Some of them fly away to different places for higher studies and some will be in the same place as their parents. There's no hard and fast rule - it's merely their choice. So I consoled myself. This is what my Soni
wants to do, and this is the country she wants to put her feet into for her higher studies. No denying that.
This phase will also go fast. She is as strong as me as I am as strong as my mother … it is in the genes ... sigh.
I opened the phone and started going through some of the photos we had taken together here. The last photo I took before getting into the taxi is not clear.
I can see the big tree in front of the window of her room and the long line of cars parked just under the numerous trees adjacent to it.
I wonder why I clicked this? Just zoomed in … there she is ... looking down through the window at me … I zoomed in again … I have seen these eyes somewhere, right? I asked myself … those eyes with tears rolling down like tiny drops of pearls.
After every holiday, when the time comes to pack me for my country of residence, my mother would be restless … her fragile hands folding my clothes, cleaning my cupboard and checking to see whether I have forgotten something very important.
And the day I get into the car without having the courage to look at her face, she will hug me softly and kiss me and turn her back and sit in the chair in the veranda just waving her hands at me, saying that take care … those tiny eyes with tears follow me throughout my journey, and I curse myself for staying away from her in another countrry. Again, there is no choice … life has its calculations.
It's those same eyes filled with tears ready to roll down that I am seeing in this photo of my daughter. The pain of leaving a loved one is spoken by the eyes first. The pain hidden in the loving relationship of a mother and daughter. It's written in those eyes.
Nowadays, I don’t see those teary eyes anymore - neither from my daughter who likes the country where she’s living now and is taking every vacation as casually as possible as a short break and is always enthusiastic to go back to join her friends … neither I see those teary eyes of my mother from any vacation as she’s watching me from the clouds that I can't see anymore, however hard I try to … so I look into the mirror for those teary eyes .. and there they are.