Grand mothers: The forgotten heartbeat of our childhood

A tribute to the love of grandmothers – unconditional, timeless, and often overlooked.

When our birth was their festival

When we are born, our grandmothers celebrate the universe itself. They don’t just welcome a child, they welcome hope. To them, every smile, every step, every word is nothing short of a festival. They treat our arrival like a rebirth of their own joy.

When life took us away

But then life happens. We grow up, we move to bigger schools, different cities, jobs with endless deadlines. Somewhere between chasing marks, promotions and ambitions, we quietly lose them. Not in death, but in distance.

They sit at home, waiting. They remember the sound of our first words, the weight of our tiny hands, the way we clung to their sari when we were scared. We, on the other hand, hardly remember the taste of their cooking or the warmth of their bedtime stories.

Love that never divides

Family conflicts often build walls. We take sides, carry bitterness, and let decisions of others decide our distance. But a grandmother’s heart doesn’t divide. Her love is not political, not conditional. It is just love.

And every time we step into her home, she has something waiting – a sweet, a toy, a new pair of clothes. Not because she knew we were coming, but because she always buys a share of everything, just in case we visit. She never wanted us to feel left out of any festival. Many of those clothes still sit folded in her wardrobe, untouched, waiting for children who never came.

Moments that still shine in memory

She struggles to get up for her own food, but when we enter, she somehow finds the strength to run to the door. She feeds us with trembling hands even when we are thirty, because to her we are still the child who never ate enough. For her, we are blessings. For us, she has become “vacation time” , a stopover we visit if schedules permit.

The signs of her love are everywhere:

The steel tins in her kitchen, where she hides laddus and murukkus at the bottom, keeping our share safe.

The sudden ₹500 note she presses into our hand, as if we still need pocket money.

The old school bag, broken toys, and small chair she has kept for decades, because to her they are treasures.

The prayers at the temple, where she still whispers our names into the gods’ ears.

The neighbors she proudly tells about our “big job” in the city, even if we haven’t called in months.

She still waits at the gate, as if one day we will come running back like the children we once were.

Time flew, love did not

In chasing the life we wanted, we lost the golden life we once had – evenings in her courtyard, eating mangoes, listening to stories that felt like they would never end.

We grew up. They grew old. But their love never changed.

A tribute that belongs to all of us

If you are blessed that she is still waiting for you, don’t make her wait too long. If you are lucky to live with her, cherish it like the fortune it is. And if you have lost her, hold onto the truth that you were once loved in a way the world will never give you again.

Grandmothers are not just part of our family. They are the heartbeat of our childhood, the keepers of our festivals, and the memory-keepers of our entire lives.

Because somewhere, right now, a grandmother is still waiting at the door, holding on to love that we no longer make time for.

END OF ARTICLE