SPREAD THE SMILE :)

               Sometimes small things in life teach you big lessons!! Let me tell you a small incident which happened 4 months back. Our landlords's mother, we call her "paatti"( that's grand ma in tamil ), is 94 years old and very sweet! She passes most of her time by sitting in the balcony and watching people moving ahead in everyday life. So..Papa, while coming back from morning walks,  used to stop by and have chit - chat with her like 'how are you", " finshed break fast?"," what did the doctor said"  to chats about neighbours, his sons, health, weather and she tells how much she misses her great grand childrens, and papa used to listen all that patiently, after some 5 to 7 minutes chat he used to come back. Recently, she was not in very pink of health. She has been admitted to hospital for several reasons, she couldn't see properly, her kidneys weren't functioning well, blood pressure was an issue and many other things. She was hospitalized for a week and then came back home. I went to see her, she was lying there, so fragile, thin, bottle of glucose hanging above her head, two syringes pierced on her hands, eyes closed, hairs undone, cheeks (literally no cheeks at all) have all vanished, she looked like just a skeleton wrapped up by piece of skin! She was sleeping, so i didn't wanted to disturb her. Her grand daughter said its because of the medicines she is taking and i can wake her up. I didn't dared to wake her. But her grand daughter did.
" See amma who has come to see you"
"Amma"
Very slowly she opened her eyes, i was not expecting her to recognize me, because after marriage i haven't seen her for almost a year and now at this condition it was least expected that she will recognize me.
"See, Pritika is here"
"Who" she mummbled.
"Pritika, Binod Anna's daughter"
"Oh" she tried to open her eyes wider,but failed.
"How are you, paatti?"
"Fine" she was not in a very concious state of mind, her eyelids were dropping down again and again.
"Your father is a great man, he is very good"
"Yeah" i didn't knew what to answer, why is she suddenly talking about papa?
Her eyes closed again, and opened after few seconds, she kept repeating the sentence
"Your father is very good, he is very good man" and repeated again and then again.
"Lets go, she needs rest"
"Yeah sure, akka"
I touched her feet and came out of the dark room. This wasn't the paatti i saw last time, she was so active at this age, always smiling and spreading the smile, but now she was so ill. One thing which made me write this post is, even at such a stage of her life, she remembers papa, in fact not only remember, she kept repeating. Papa havn't paid her money to do that, neither he had asked her to d it, it was natural. All papa gave her is some "time" and "smile", which no money could buy! I was bound to think, how an act of goodness, an act of showing that "YOU CARE" could matter so much in some one's life! After four months, she is much better now, papa still stand by to have a small chat with paatti , everyday he successfully brings smile on her face and she gracefully accepts and bless my father as her own son :)