Hi Mom, I'm Tired

Hi Mom, I’m tired.

It has been exactly one year to the day, June 8, 2019, that you left me.

The doctors tried and you fought for 6 hours to keep your loving heart beating, but at 6:29am, the doctors looked at the clock, wrote the time on the whiteboard, and lobbied who would come tell me, not realizing until too late that I had been standing at the open door praying, watching them hour after hour. I asked if I could say bye to you and they quietly left the room. I kissed your forehead one final time, with tears running down my face onto yours. You won’t have known, but Dad had fainted a few hours earlier when he saw the doctors and nurses wailing on your 4’10” frame to bring your heart back to us. With his own heart condition, he was rushed off to his own emergency room in the cardiac ward. The thought crossed my mind that yesterday I had both parents, and today, I may not have any. At 8am, with the crust of the tears firmly in the corners of my eyes, I walked to Timmies in the hospital to get a coffee, so that I could sound strong and call your daughters, your brothers, and your sisters, and tell them you had gone to a better place where you would be reunited with your own mom and dad.

It’s been a long year without you, Mom. I’ve been tired all year long taking care of Dad, who misses you very much. He’s well. He’s cooking more and I cook for him the best I can, and make sure he doesn’t watch too much Family Feud. Until today, I’ve not really told anyone how tired I’ve been. I just wanted to make it past your birthday, Mother’s Day, and today by being the rock for the family. Get all the ‘firsts’ out of the way. 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. Each time I wanted to tell anyone how tired I was, I remembered that you worked in factories putting heels on shoes for $5.50/hr to put Kam, Pardip, Suki and I through school. You were the Head Principal of an All Girls School in India, but in Canada, endured 40 years of racism, fighting back tears yourself each day as you came home to cook us dinner and help us with 4 sets of homework. You never told us directly, but I would hear you and Dad compare stories about why ‘Janet gets the overtime shifts and I don’t’ and ‘Doug called me a Paki and stood there, begging me to retaliate so he could fire me’. I know I’m tired Mom, but I can’t even imagine how tired you must have been, day after day, year after year. Your smile never left that beautiful face when you were with us though. You made everyone else feel like the most important person in the room when you spoke with them, cracking jokes and laughing, regardless how tired you were.

You were a WARRIOR. You were always a warrior. You were raised in a time in India when women were not treated as equals BUT you were a warrior. You made sure the female voice was heard. You always treated me and my 3 sisters as equals. You always said colour or gender shouldn’t limit opportunities. It was just a few years back when you confided in me, that there was a time in India when it was suggested after Suki was born that you get an abortion because it ‘looked bad for family reputation’ that you were pregnant again a year later. You told your in-laws that it’s MY BODY and MY CHOICE. That was in 1975. That child you fought to save was me. You told me I am in this world to make a positive change, and to never stop trying. Even when I’m tired.

Mom, when I used to come home from school with my turban knocked off my head from the white kids pushing me and laughing at me for being different, crying day after day, you wouldn’t coddle me. You would tell me to become hardened for a lifetime of racism, but not let the hate of others touch my heart. We lived in Oakville, a town that only a handful of Indian and Black families at the time. You prophetically told me it didn’t matter if I’m 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years old, my skin will always be Brown. And that will upset people. You told me if I am lucky enough to get an office job, and even luckier to maybe, just maybe, one day get promoted to be a manager, the racism will definitely find its way there too. You told me if I work extra hard to get one of the very limited number of coloured seats at the managerial table, there will always be people who will see my skin colour first. That people who don’t know me well will try to bring me down so they can raise themselves up. Mom, you told me to be prepared for HR to come to me out of the blue at every company I will ever work at, with a false complaint that was made about me. It’s not HRs fault. They are doing their job. But the accusers, the ‘Doug from the factory’ will be everywhere. While ‘Janet and Doug’ will move on without a second thought with their day, the scars they leave me at each job, decade after decade, will never go away. Mom, you told me to not let these scars hold me hostage though. Not to let them make me live my life in fear. You told me to see the scars as a tattoo of triumph and strength, not pain. Mom I’m 45 years old and that kid who used to get his turban knocked off continues to see ‘Doug and Janet’ these days. Sadly, with each incident of racism, my faith in humanity shrinks. Mom, I’m tired.

Mom, you will be surprised with the amount of banana bread, puzzles, push-up challenges, virtual happy hours and home sewn face masks the world has partaken in since you’ve left me. If you were around you would have the best advice for everyone working at home trying to teach their kids how to be home schooled while making dinners and doing housework, all while having a fulltime job. Since the pandemic, life feels like the movie Groundhog Day, but getting progressively longer and worse. More so this past week, it seems as though nerves are frayed. People are irritable. The novelty has worn off. Anxiety has replaced the can-do attitude. Literally I think emotions are just shutting down. Maybe the body is reacting to ‘you’ve had enough’. I do feel if you were around during this strange time, you would tell us though: “If you don’t learn a new language, try a new recipe, or paint amazing things right now, that’s fine. Get through each day and support the people around you. Doing as much as you can right now is enough”.

Mom, as though Covid-19 was not enough, George Floyd is the latest of a long list of Black people who have been murdered by Police Brutality. The last words that came out of his mouth as the police officer killed him with his knee on his neck for almost 9 minutes were: “Please officer, I can’t breathe. I can’t move … mama … mama … I can’t.” Maybe at that moment, George’s own Mom was stretching her hand out and welcoming him to heaven to be with her, where George can finally enjoy the colour of his skin.

Mom, I’m tired of hearing many white people reply with All Lives Matter. If someone says Black Lives Matter, someone white replies with “Well don’t All Lives Matter?”. If I tell a colleague “my Mom just died”, and they respond with “Everyone’s parents die”, that would be true, but hurtful and cruel in the moment. Many white people continue to fail to realize that ‘All’ lives can’t matter until Black lives matter. The houses of my Black brothers and sisters are burning. My Chinese, Latino, Tamil, Malaysian, Pakistani, Indian and fellow people of colour around the world are all having our own wounds ripped open too. While our house may not be burning, it’s been egged all our lives. There are only so many scars we can have and call them tattoos of strength. At some point the pain just can’t be supressed.

Mom, I’m tired of knowing every few months a new Black name will emerge as a hashtag to follow #breonnataylor #ahmaudarbery #georgefloyd, only to be replaced just as quickly with a trending #netflixAndChill #tigerking

Mom, I’m tired of knowing that no matter where I go, I will be looked at and treated differently because of the colour of my skin.

Mom, I’m tired of knowing that we have a long way to go for us to be a truly united people who see past colour, class, gender, and sexual preference.

Mom, I’m tired of having to explain to people why I’m tired and I’m tired of being tired.

Mom, you taught me to never come to you with a problem if I don’t also come to you with a potential solution. So, what do I do? What can we do? Actually, I don’t wonder what or how. I wonder WHY.

We need to each ask ourselves WHY we want to see change. The how and what come later. I recently was reminded of Simon Sinek’s ‘START WITH WHY’ which states:

“In business terms, every single organization in the world knows what they do. Some know how they do it. But very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by "why" I don't mean "to make a profit." That's a result. It's always a result. By "why," I mean: What's your purpose? What's your cause? What's your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care? As a result, the way we think, we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in, it's obvious. We go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired leaders and the inspired organizations -- regardless of their size, regardless of their industry -- all think, act and communicate from the inside out. In the summer of 1963, 250,000 people showed up on the mall in Washington to hear Dr. King speak. They sent out no invitations, and there was no website to check the date. How do you do that? Well, Dr. King wasn't the only man in America who was a great orator. He wasn't the only man in America who suffered in a pre-civil rights America. In fact, some of his ideas were bad. But he had a gift. He didn't go around telling people what needed to change in America. He went around and told people what he believed. "I believe, I believe, I believe," he told people. And people who believed what he believed took his cause, and they made it their own, and they told people. And some of those people created structures to get the word out to even more people. And lo and behold, 250,000 people showed up on the right day at the right time to hear him speak. How many of them showed up for him? Zero. They showed up for themselves. It's what they believed about America that got them to travel in a bus for eight hours to stand in the sun in Washington in the middle of August. It's what they believed, and it wasn't about black versus white: 25% of the audience was white. Dr. King believed that there are two types of laws in this world: those that are made by a higher authority and those that are made by men. And not until all the laws that are made by men are consistent with the laws made by the higher authority will we live in a just world. It just so happened that the Civil Rights Movement was the perfect thing to help him bring his cause to life. We followed, not for him, but for ourselves. By the way, he gave the "I have a dream" speech, not the "I have a plan" speech. Listen to politicians now, with their comprehensive 12-point plans. They're not inspiring anybody. Because there are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority, but those who lead inspire us. Whether they're individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it's those who start with "Why" that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them.”

Mom, I’m tired, but I’m not defeated.

Mom, I’m tired, but I believe.

I miss you Mom.

With all my love,

Harp