100 Rays Of Son - 50

How It All Started

May 11^th on Farheena’s birthday, like usual both the odd jobs and even jobs were passed on to Rayyan. Though I do my bit when we host a party, there is a limit to running around I can do. Farheena’s dad is weird person and so far hasn’t been of much help around parties. Usually, Rayyan ends up being the burden bearer of all the pending work.

This year, being busy with the party I realized very late in the night that Rayyan might not have had enough food that day. He was busy running errands throughout the day. So when I asked him about it I realized he did not even get a piece of birthday cake. He had just one tiny meal in 30 hours with a bit of snacks in between. Rayyan says his stomach is trained to eat more when food is available and also to go hungry when required. He says his tummy doesn’t complain nor does it affect his functioning. I know what he says is true. When usually we order more than we require at a restaurant, we turn to Rayyan to finish it off and he gracefully does it. His friends have been surprised as well at this gluttony part of Rayyan when he takes up challenge of finishing off food. But usually, he limits his food intake and surprisingly avoids heavy food as well even though he is not heavy. Sigh! Only if I could do it as well.

Going back to Farheena’s birthday, Rayyan could go to bed only after 3.30 a.m. with light dinner. I know that Farheena gets a lot of attention, gifts and love on her birthday, but there is nothing much I do for Rayyan. Feeling extremely grateful to have this pleasant person around, I kept thinking what gift I can give him. I have so much to be grateful to him for. My life wouldn’t be what it is today, if not for Rayyan and it has much easier because of his presence. All of a sudden I realized that Rayyan and Farheena were born 100 days apart, and I had 100 days to get a gift ready for him. This is how #100RaysOfSon started. When I told Rayyan that I am going to do it, he was happy to know that he could read through his childhood stories, though at that time he may not have realized that mom admires him so much that it can be embarrassing at times. Only request from him was for me to not exaggerate anything and also not to demean anyone when I write about his stories. He wanted me to be honest as well, which again may lead me to demean few people but I did not tell it out loud to him. I was excited and wanted to start immediately.

Initially I tagged my brother and sister to the posts so that they could read them when they were free. Apart from them, I did not expect many to read this. But as I started, I realized that these posts got more attention than anything I have posted on my wall before. In fact, I saw some people comment for the first time on my facebook post. This was an eye opener for me, because I realize today that good things are appreciated as much as success. This is what makes us humans special. This was not a success story, but a recollection of simple life events which had an impact on me. I want to thank everyone for connecting with me over this posts, though I have failed miserably to respond to you personally.

BTW, so far Rayyan has been reading and recollecting few memories as well. Another shocking experience was that the dyslexic Rayyan could out spelling or grammatical mistakes in my posts. This is the only time it has happened.

We had long discussion about the tadpoles, jeans, swings, beach, and off course the fish. In fact we tried searching internet to find out what kind of a fish it was. It had no scales at all and was very smooth like a dolphin, had a blow hole on its head and its fins were very different. Rayyan says it had pinkish tinge on the grey. So far it remains a mystery fish. We are enjoying our discussions over this stories.

We discussed out pets, our adventures on beach and our wonderful memories of USA. Rayyan recollected our adventures on auto-rickshaw which I will share sometime soon.

I realized how much Rayyan loves his grandparents as well. He lovingly recollected their memories when I posted about them, especially about the coin collection. The posts about his grandmother and grandfather were the ones he showed lot of appreciation for.

I also realized that I have so much to be grateful to my family for showering Rayyan with love which looks like a maximum anyone can love anyone. My mom, dad, Surila, Sajid and Sabina have loved Rayyan wholeheartedly without holding back at all.

I recollected how Paula and Jay have been a family to both my children, even though they were on the opposite side of the globe. It was nice to hear from his friends and my friends about how they felt about these recollections, of which they were a part as well.

Every day as I try to recall an incident to write about, there are tons of stories that flash before me and makes me happy. Rayyan has handled his life so well, that there is nothing to make me sigh, pull my hairs, feel sad or get angry. All of those recollections of memories come by a whiff of fresh air from beautiful garden. I am a very happy and grateful mom.

I am thanking everyone once again for making this beautiful memories worth sharing with you all. Each of your gesture of liking the post, commenting or calling me to tell how much you liked it is appreciated a lot.