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Photo: H.Vibhu

Happy MomEmilda Isaacs, all of 81, is sprightly

Imagine having not five, not six but 10 children. Emilda Isaacs is a lesson for modern day Ma’s who can’t wait for their kids to turn one, and send them off to playschool. Ask her how she “managed” and she is surprised at the question. “It wasn’t that difficult, we managed. My older boys chipped in and helped me with bringing up the children.”

We are talking about life more than five decades ago when raising children was the sole prerogative of mothers. But Aunty Emilda has no complaints.

Big is beautifulEmilda Isaacs with her family, a family photo taken a few years ago

“I had enough help around. My husband would be busy with his work.” Emil Isaacs and Eloy Isaacs, of India’s first rock band 13 A. D. are Aunty Emilda’s sons. Aunty Emilda says, “The children are musically inclined; they get it from their father. My role? Nothing. I am not too much of a singer, just that I sing once in a while.”

All of 81 plus years, Aunty Emilda gives a new twist to the word ‘sprightly’: Dressed to the ‘T’, with bracelets, rings complete with danglers. She runs a nursery school, Emildane school, which she has had for the last 20 years following her retirement from St. Mary’s school. Although she stumbled on to teaching in a school rather late in life, she used to take tuitions. It was at her sister’s insistence that she started teaching. That she has put in 40 years into teaching shows her love for the job.

She is ‘Mama Miss’, ‘Mama Teacher’ or ‘Mama Madam’ to her students. “Some of the little ones here are grandchildren of children that I have taught, and some of them come up to me and ask me if I remember them. It is tough to remember all your students after all. As a teacher one sees so many students.”

She takes classes daily and checks the assignments herself. Of late, each year that she closes school for vacations, she is apprehensive if she would be able to see the next session.

School apart, her face lights up when she talks of her children and what they do. “I have 10 children, but I am mother to 11,” her voice softens, remembering her youngest born who passed away in infancy. There is sorrow, but Aunty Emilda is not one to let anything get her down. Losing a child, the first or the last, would cause sorrow but for her, her youngest is ‘an angel’. There is no dearth of memories. Her oldest, Emil’s birth, is fresh in her mind.

The ease with which she talks about being a mama, makes it all sound so easy. “I made sure that my children had a time table to follow when I was out working and my older children made sure that it was implemented. There was a time to study, to play and for prayer. And that had to be followed.” Summer vacations were tough, Aunty Emilda laughs, “I would make sure that the children napped in the afternoon. Whether they felt sleepy or not they had to take rest.”

Of the tough times as a parent, she is philosophical, “all parents worry about children. There is nothing much to it.” Like every parent whether education was getting affected was a worry. She recalls, for instance, how when Emil was in college, members of Yesudas’s group would take him from college for performances. “That used to make me very angry because I felt his studies would be affected. Education is very important for me.”

Her husband, Mr. Joe Isaacs passed away four years ago and she lives with her children. Her children live all over the world, but her children who are here make sure that Aunty Emilda is never alone, in fact, her home buzzes with activity.

She is a grandmother as well, and her one big regret is, “I am not a great grandmother yet, though some of my grandchildren are married. See, most of them are boys. But now, I have good news, I will soon become a great grandmother,” says a very excited Aunty Emilda.

No regrets for this 81 year old MOTHER.

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