My mother at sixty six

Some poems are beautiful. Some are memorable. And then there are poems that feel like someone reached into your chest and squeezed your chest and squeezed your heart. My mother of sixty Six by Kamala Das is one of those poems.

When we first read it,it may feel like another chapter to study. Later it becomes painfully personal.
The poem begins with the poet travelling with her ageing mother. She looks at her mother's face and suddenly notices how old and tired she has become. Her mother is asleep beside her. Looking pale and lifeless. That ordinary moments becames terrifying because the poet is confronted with something children often refuse to imagine their parents will eventually leave them.
When makes the poem hurt is how ordinary the situation is.There is no dramatic tragedy happening. A daughter is simply sitting beside her mother during a journey. Yet while looking at her. She realizes that time has been moving silently .The woman who once carried her protected her and probably seemed almost immortal is now becoming old.
That realization is painfully relatable even today. We grow up watching our parents become older without really noticing it,bwe are busy with school, college,work,friendships, and our own problems. Then suddenly we notice a few greybhairs slower footsteps, tired eyes,or the way they struggle with something that once seemed effortless. For a second, everything feels frighteningly real.
The poem's most painful emotion is not simply sadness. It doesn't s helplessness. The poet knows that ageing cannot be stopped. Love cannot bargain with time . Money cannot permanently protect. Someone from death . No amount of success can give us the one thing we secretly wantbenough time with the people we cannot imagine living without.
The ending makes that fear even more powerful. The poet says goodbye to her mother while hiding her sadness behind a smile, just as she did when she was young . She knows the separation is temporary. But another thought is waiting underneath it - the possibility that one day the good buy will not be temporary. That possibility is what makes the poem feel like a punch.
I think that is why reading this poem now feels different from reading it as a student. Earlier the poem was about an old mother and a frightened daughter. Now it can suddenly feel like a mirror. We start imagining our own parents sitting beside us, ageing quietly while we are busy becoming adults. And the realization can make your stomach drop.

The terrifying part is that we can never completely prepare for that day. People often say that death is natural and inevitable, but knowing something intellectually does not makes experiencing that our parents will not be with us forever, yet some childish part of us continues believing that somehow they will always be there.
Perhaps the poem's greater lession is not simply about death. It is about noticing people whilebwe still have them . Call your mother sit beside your father. Listen to the story you have already heard five times. Notice their hands their voice their habits not because these things can prevent the future, but because one day they may be exactly what you desperately wish you could experience again.
My mother at sixty Six stay with me because it captures a fear I don't think I will ever completely overcome . I can accept that ageing is part of life, but I don't think I will ever be ready for the day whenbmy mother becomes only a memory. Maybe nobody is. Maybe that is why the poem hurts because somewhere inside us we already know the goodbye is coming and we wish time would slow down