My graceful and elegant Mom is so full of surprises. 🙂

I was on the phone with her the other day, me in the US and she in India, where she has lived on her own since my dad passed away a decade ago.

She seemed to be in a good mood, may be because I would be seeing her on a short and sweet visit very soon?

But that was apparently not the reason. She says to me, I have a surprise for you. But you know how I can’t hold anything back, so I have to spill it now. Since she seemed pumped, I smiled and said, what?

She said, I bought a new car. Whoa!  Just like that?

I know she loves shopping but this is a car we’re talking about! You don’t just go to the market and pick one up. I wouldn’t call that a minor decision, exactly. Especially for her.

To get the right perspective, you have to understand the journey she took the last time she bought a car for herself,  a few years ago. She had to first decide that it was worth trading in her current vehicle. For that, she had consulted my brother and myself. Then, the whole question of which car to buy took another couple of months. She consulted a cousin who had in depth knowledge about all the cars on the road (he writes car reviews). Diesel or petrol? Which model? How big? Then, she waded through all the choices to shortlist two final car models recommended by my cousin before deciding on make, model, color. The last step was (once again!) running this decision by her two children, getting our “approval” before ultimately purchasing it.

I actually recall having many discussions with her before she finally settled on whether to buy, and then which car to buy. The entire process took three months, maybe more.

This time? Wham! She had simply decided that this what she wanted to do, consulted just one person, figured out what car she wanted, what color (very important!), checked it out, sold her current car to a friend and bought a new one before she said a word to my brother or myself. 

I love it! 

We joyfully celebrated a milestone birthday of hers just over a year ago. It’s also not a biased opinion that she doesn’t look anywhere close to her age (but then you can also say, who does these days?).  What’s great is that she apparently doesn’t feel anything like it either.

More power to her. Her independent streak continues to unfold even now. And that’s what I really, really love. Love!

Is there any age where we stop learning, growing, evolving, getting more independent?  Apparently not. It’s a choice that you can decide to make.

I couldn’t resist asking her, so what did bro say??! She laughed. My loving brother can be a son to be feared – in a very good way, except that is, when someone he loves has put on the pounds – then he can be downright scary.  I know all about that. Obviously. 🙂

She chuckled again and told me that he had had just one question. He asked her, did you buy a Hyundai?  Hehe, poor guy is getting hard of hearing. 🙂

She told him, no and repeated that she had bought a Honda.

This horse was out of the barn by then, but I guess he still felt he needed to give his stamp of approval so he said, well, that’s okay then. 🙂

:

: