My knight in shining armour: Daughter's account of single mother's journey

Everyone around her was wailing. She remained numb until her daughter spoke: "Don't bury papa... the ants might bite him." She hugged the three-and-a-half-year old and sobbed like a baby. This was how a mother was re-born.

Indore resident Babita Francis was widowed at the age of 24. Her husband, 34-year-old billiards coach Raphael Francis, had suffered a fatal heart attack one fine day 1996. Married for less than five years, the couple had two young children — a one-and-a-half-year-old son, Ryan and I, the daughter.

At an age when most of her friends were still getting married, my mother found herself stranded in the journey of life. The second of three siblings, she turned to her parents — a Goan father who had retired from the army and a Kashmiri mother — now with the added responsibility of her children. She had no option but to bite the bullet and move on. It helped that she had been financially independent since her younger days.

Reality bites

My mother gave 27 years of her life to professional commitments, spending 12 years working as a clerk with the Madhya Pradesh Police Housing Department since 1989. The early years after my father's death were far from easy: she'd drop my brother at a local creche and me to the playschool before heading to work; when we started going to school, she'd not only drop us to school but also pick us up during her lunch break to bring us home before heading back to work again. She did this six days a week for six years until I was old enough to cycle to and from school. Even then, she'd rise each day at 5am to attend to household chores, meals and lunch boxes.

And yet, she never allowed these ups and downs to suppress her smile.

In 2001, when the state's chief minister Digvijay Singh decided to close down the department she was working for, our circumstances took a drastic turn. Her colleagues decided to challenge the government's decision in court. This meant a long-drawn legal battle for which my mother was compelled to hire a lawyer. This was a blow to a woman supporting two children and two ageing parents — one of whom was paralysed. There were times when well-wishers advised her to send us to state board schools instead of private convent schools in order to save money. But my mother was determined not to compromise with the quality of our education. This came at a cost: she was unable to pay the lawyers fee to file an appeal in the Supreme Court within the stipulated 90-day time frame. She didn't mind losing the battle for she knew she'd secured a good education for us.

Freedom with responsibility

As I went through school, I began to feel a deep sense of gratitude for my mother for simply letting me be. While my friends would often complain about parental pressure, my mother had given us the liberty to choose everything from our clothes to our careers. This is not to say that she wasn't strict; she enforced, and still does, our social curfew with the discipline of a military general.

In all these years, I've not seen her buy a sari for herself, but she finds the means to fulfil the smallest desires that my brother or I have. I remember my mom spending a couple of sleepless nights over not being able to buy a new pair of cleats for my brother because she'd just about enough money to see her through the last days of the month. A few days later, the studs were the first thing she bought as soon as she received her salary.

My mother has a knack of making everything look effortless. She has taught me that a fine character outweighs wealth. There have been times when I've seen her compromise on her meals and her sleep but never on her integrity. It's her faith in God that keeps her going. She starts and ends each day with a prayer; Like Job, in the Old Testament, who praised God in the face of adversity, my mother gives thanks for her "wealth" i.e. my brother and I.

Small town, big dreams

In a small town, where family members depend on each other for support, it is de rigeur to find a job immediately after graduation and start contributing to the family. But even as I navigated possible career paths, first choosing to study computer science and then opting for journalism (an unconventional choice), she stood by my decisions without batting an eyelid. Getting into journalism meant relocating. We weren't financially secure to afford expenses in two different cities. It was unimaginably difficult, both financially and emotionally. But my mum knew that my dreams were bigger than the city we lived in. She was the one who had taught us to dream big, and now she'd help me see through mine.

If relocating was difficult for me, it was harder for her. There were bills and fees to pay, boarding and lodging to attend to, and Babita Francis did it without a murmur. "When Babita told me you're relocating, I was taken aback because I know of her emotional dependence on you," her friend Josephine Dominic told me months after I left Indore. "But she didn't think twice because she knew you really wanted this."

It has been 22 months since I've been away from home. But she's just a call away. "I wish I had a pair of wings," she tells me often. The 44-year-old doesn't feel that she's done an exceptional job. But what she doesn't realise is that far from being a damsel in distress, she's been a badass babe who conquered every challenge life hurled at her with a smile. For the world, Babita Francis is yet another single mother in a small town. For me, she's the most significant part of my life.