The Journey of a Mother

After a harrowing year-long wait, Durga arrived in the US from India with a meagre 200 dollars. Her daughters needed their mother – the only surviving parent following the abrupt death of their father, Kishan.

Kishan’s friends had graciously offered to preserve Kishan’s body for cremation until Durga’s arrival. But the visa-processing delays during Covid and the uncertainty of Durga’s timely arrival, led to their collective decision to authorize Kishan’s cremation one month after his death. Durga would come back to Kishan’s ashes and two rudderless, underage daughters.

Crying, she explained, “When I arrived here, I knew nothing. I did not know the language as I attended a small rural school in India and hadn’t studied past the tenth grade. I had no money to support my daughters who were US citizens. I had no sense of where to begin as it was always my husband who took care of it all.”

Durga remembered Kishan reverentially as a well-educated and kind man. He was from a neighboring village in India but had moved to the US at fifteen to pursue his studies. He later went on to work for the Washington Mutual Bank in Seattle. Durga and Kishan had two daughters in the first four years of their marriage. These were some of the few cherished moments of Durga’s life.

In 2007, reeling from the effects of massive loan losses, Washington Mutual laid off thousands of its employees. Kishan was one of them. This was followed by the stock market crash and eventually the Great Recession of 2008. Kishan had little choice but to return to India with Durga and their daughters.

While in India, Kishan was diagnosed with kidney failure. The family persevered despite the setbacks. Durga single-handedly took charge of running their household, caring for her ailing husband, and attending to their daughters. Gradually, Kishan’s health stabilized, and, in 2019, he returned to Seattle – determined to give their daughters access to better education and opportunities. Durga stayed behind in India.

In 2022, six months before Kishan’s scheduled kidney transplant, Durga received a frantic call from her daughters: Kishan had passed away unexpectedly from a cardiac arrest. Their daughters were too young to live by themselves. Kishan’s friends took them in, offering a roof and some stability as they grappled with the shock of the death and waited for their mother’s arrival.

Durga’s agonizing wait to reunite with her daughters ended in 2023, when she was able to make the journey to Seattle. Despite the grief and the unsettling reality of starting over as a single mother in a foreign land, Durga was left with no alternative but to plough ahead.

Kishan’s friends introduced Durga to services offered by Indian American Community Services (IACS). The organization helped Durga move into an apartment on the East side and pay the first eight months of rent until Durga found employment. With help from IACS, Durga took English classes at a Community College and initially began a part-time job as a cashier at a local grocery store in her first job and assisting in a community kitchen as a helper for her second job.

Today, Durga assists a sous chef feed over 150 elderly people. She dreams now of learning to drive. Her daughters are carving their own futures as they work towards their college degrees.

I sense both sadness and gratitude in Durga’s voice as she narrates her story. Her sadness stems from an irrevocable loss and loneliness. But her gratitude and resilience rise above the unnegotiable grief. She tells me, “I grieve Kishan’s absence. He was all I wanted from God. But I remain grateful for all the other blessings that came my way. I was raised by two handloom weavers in a humble household. We survived on two meals a day. My parents worked under the dadan system, where Mahajans (middlemen) provided the yarn and other supplies. Each week, they wove two cotton sarees, barely earning enough to keep our family of five afloat.

At my current point in life, I consider myself fortunate to afford three meals a day and access healthcare for my daughters. I do what I can to support my parents back home. When I think of my relatives still working as daily wage laborers in houses that leak during the monsoons, I can’t help but feel gratitude for what I have. IACS has helped me find my footing in a new country. While there is still a deep loneliness that follows me, I am grateful for how far I’ve come.”