While Covid was yet in the air.... this I think was on the 16th of March, just about a week back....is when this story began.
Up until then we were sitting at what seemed like a safe distance....it looked like things were happening in Wuhan and Milan and New York.... but it all seemed rather far away, still paper news, and what was happening here was more precautionary.
And then came the news that universities were shutting down, and what's worse, that students were being asked to vacate campus. That was my first concerned call to Diksha.
It set the thinking wheels whirring...... she was weighing options of losing an year of college (her university is still functioning, though mostly online), her campus not shutting down as their village as it's called, is a privately run housing tenement within campus, having a supportive group of friends...... the looming crisis......and figuring what she wanted to do.
Despite advice to the contrary, of friends telling me that she's a tween and yet a child and I cannot leave the decision to her, I did. It's my core value in life. I took it upon myself to give her as much information as I could, be the white board for brain storming, enabling thought, giving perspectives........yet leaving the decision to her.
I knew of people in my position who were either forcing, or emotionally arm twisting their children to come back. It took my all to do neither.
There was one evening when I'm asking her if she'd checked on tickets and she's like "I haven't yet decided ma, but trust me, I'm thinking harrdddd".
It's only much later that I was telling a friend how it's so much harder to 'allow and enable a decision and align into it' than to take the decision. Right or wrong I wouldn't know, but I'm happy with it. With knowing that my approach of 'allowing risk, letting the children figure how to handle risk, and being there no matter what' is something I could abide by even under such dire circumstances. To keep it at all times about them, and not us.
On 18th she took the decision to come back. Tickets were booked for the 6 am of 21st March, to fly in through Singapore.
One day of breathing relief.....that's all I got.
On 19th March at about 5 pm, I got the news that India was closing down all international flights from the 22nd.
That was a sure spiral. The feeling you get when the roller coaster is on a steep slope, being pushed into the air, heart in mouth, and held in place by only the seat belt, except that this was for real, and I didn't know if we had that seat belt.
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