Note: This is first in series of the myDecember Posts by LeanOnTree. Please do #ShowYourLove by sharing your selective entries with us at leanontreeblog@gmail.com. We’ll post the same on our blog. Remember, it’s a story. It’s life. Yours and Mine.

Inspiration: #WeatherCheck #Berlin-ArtParasites

Anyone who has lived in Delhi knows the extreme notes our weather may touch. Where summers are particularly dry and hot, winters can be categorically chilly. Although it’s December, and comparatively last December was warmer, I have already gotten the winter cold.

I like winters – or I used to. It is snuggly and once you surrender under a warm quilt, it is like the world cease to exist. We all crave for such moments, don’t we? Where the world no longer exists and you can feel the warmth of your own breaths, the sound of your muffled inhales and exhales, the only sound you hear.

However I lie today, in a cold desolate winter night, and everything around is so chilly, I want to pierce a knife through my skin to discover signs of any activity at all.

My mother is sleeping peacefully besides me. Maybe the sleeping pills have finally kicked in. Ever since my father passed away, I have been sharing the room with her. Part of it is her failing health and the other part, is my issue.

People live with unhealed complexes all their lives. My issue is that I feel an insatiable need to protect everyone around me. And despite all of my best efforts, I feel frustrated, like a father whose daughter is letting drugs and unrequited love claim her life.

• If only I could tell her, it’s not over yet.
• If only I could tell her, it gets better.
• If only I could tell her, it’s never harder but just hard.
• If only I could tell her, she will be able to still breathe after a point when she thinks she won't make it.
• If only I could tell her, I could hug her as a human first, a father next.
• If only I could tell her, that I have lived through this too...

Sufis and Prophets advocate to no end, the essence of being still. I used to love winters for the deep omnipresent silence it brought. But right now, we are all haunted by a stagnant, invincible, insurmountable stillness.

I wonder if things would ever change. I wonder if I just persevere and push through for long enough, that it will all make sense one day. That healing lurks behind this evasive intrusive ache.

But I am also aware that I am a masochist. I get that from my mother. And when you chase pain, gritting with all your might, you receive nothing else but pain.

What is winter, if not the way my heart aches for you touch? The way my mother longs for her akin to keep her company. The way cold shivers await the kiss of sunshine.

In the morning, I’ll wake up before time and would water the buried seed. If a sapling grows, I would know in the depths of winters, there remain a life, still.