Jharoka

There are words we speak with our throats and there are words we speak with our souls.

Losing my mother is a heartbreak that has changed the very syntax of my life. In the silence she left behind, I have found myself reflecting not just on who she was, but today, on the names I called her.

In the very beginning, as I learned to speak, there was only Ammi. Poetically, the word is tied to the concept of the foundation or the source. Similar to the way in which our breaths naturally utter “Al-lah” as we inhale and exhale remembering the Divine with each breath. As a child, I didn’t have to learn the word Ammi — I felt it. It was the first country I ever lived in. To say Ammi was to call for air, for food, for safety.

As I grew older and the world became a larger, louder place, my language began to shift in my middle years. I wanted to be modern and fit into the rhythm of the life happening around me. So, I tucked Ammi away like a childhood toy and traded it for the universal currency of Mommy, and eventually, the independent, clipped sound of Mom.

In those years, Mom was the person I navigated life with. She was my advisor, my safety net, and more often the person I was trying to prove my independence to. I didn’t realize then that I was wandering away from the most soulful sound I knew.

Maturity has a way of stripping away the unnecessary. As I reached adulthood, the word “Mom” started to feel too thin. It didn’t hold the weight of our shared history, the spices in her kitchen, or the ancestral strength she carried in her bones.

I found myself reverting. I went back to Ammi.

Returning to that name felt like a homecoming. It was a conscious choice to honor the umbilical cord of culture and love that had never truly severed. To call her “Ammi” again was an adult’s profound recognition of her essence. I wasn’t just her child anymore, I was her witness.

In the final chapter of our lives together, the name evolved one last time. It became Ammi ji.

Adding that “ji” changed the very vibration of the word. It was no longer just a name but a bowing of the head. It was the moment my love matured into reverence.

By adding that suffix of honor, I was acknowledging her not just as my mother, but as a soul of immense dignity—a queen (Rani) in her own right. Ammi ji was the name of our settled peace. It carried the sweetness of my childhood, the depth of my adulthood, and the sacred respect she had earned through every sacrifice she ever made.

She is gone now, but the name remains. When I speak it in the quiet hours, it feels like a complete sentence.

As I write this, I’m reminded of a line from one of my favorite movies, Hope Floats (1998) — “Beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up.”

I started with the name she gave me, moved away to find myself, and returned to find her. The “ji” is the part that lingers now as the soft, respectful hush at the end of her name that tells the universe: This woman was my foundation, my teacher, and my greatest honor.

Rest in eternal, blissful peace, my Ammi ji. You are spoken every time I breathe.

If you have made it to this post / page, I would be most appreciative if you could say a prayer or recite Fatiha for my beloved mother. Thank you.