Mum and the wishing well

My mum is a teller of stories – true stories. This one in particular was oft-repeated at my request. It is an example of the many tiny seeds of faith she planted in my young mind.

It was a family event. Someone’s wedding, perhaps. Everyone was having a wonderful time. But Mum was a bit on edge. She knew it was just a matter of time before someone would pop the question.

There was laughing and dancing and the usual banter. Cousins and old friends, catching up after years. As they were finishing their meal, one of the cousins turned to Mum and said, “So how much longer are you two planning to wait?”

She knew what was meant. Yet she asked, “For what?”

“To have a child, of course!”

Without revealing the storm within, she replied, “We aren’t planning; God is.”

Mum and Dad had a wonderful marriage. But a dark, rainless cloud followed them around, ready to drench them without warning with different questions about just one thing – their being without child.

It was impossible to go to any social event without the inevitable questions. Trips to their native villages were especially painful. In rural India, big families were the norm back then.

They didn’t even need to step out of the house to feel the whiplash of these questions. Their tidy rooms were an almost-daily reminder of the absence of a little mess-maker. Six long years they had waited, visited doctors, and waited some more. It was then that a concerned friend who couldn’t bear Mum’s suffering and tears told her, “Come along, there is something I want to show you.”

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Mum and her friend travelled a short distance from their place of work. They stopped in a small lane, a little away from the main road. There, nestled between two trees was a well. It looked ordinary, like any other well.

“Why have we stopped here?” asked Mum.

“This is a special well,” her friend replied. “It’s believed to be sacred. Many have got their desires fulfilled here. You just throw in a coin and ask for what you want. Believe me, you’ll have a child in your arms at long last.”

It wouldn’t take much. She just had to throw a coin into the water below.

Mum turned around and began to walk away. “Where are you going?” her friend called out.

“Back,” said Mum. “If my God wants me to have a child, I will have one. And if He doesn’t, I won’t. I would rather be without a child forever than abandon Him.”

It wasn’t long after that, that Mum conceived me – an answer to her prayers and the prayers of the gracious woman who would become my godmother. It had been a 7-year-long struggle but even if she had given up hope at times, she never gave up her God.