Krishna and Devaki - The Mother Who Couldn't Raise Her Son

Devaki had dreamed of this moment for eighteen years. And now that it was here—her son standing before her, grown, powerful, with the eyes of a god—she didn't know what to say.

Krishna: "Mother."

Krishna's voice was warm.

Devaki: "I don't know if I have the right to that name."

The words came out before she could stop them.

Krishna crossed the room and took her hands.

Krishna: "You carried me. You gave me life. What right could be greater?"

Devaki: "Yashoda raised you. Yashoda held you when you cried, taught you to walk, scolded you for stealing butter. I was in a prison cell, counting the years."

Krishna: "You were protecting me. Every year you stayed in that cell, you were protecting me from Kansa's knowledge."

Devaki: "I was powerless. That's not protection. That's imprisonment."

Krishna led her to sit. She noticed he treated her with the same careful gentleness he might use with a wounded bird.

Devaki: "Let me tell you something about mothers, You think motherhood is feeding and bathing and scolding. Those are tasks. Any nurse can do tasks. Motherhood is the willingness to die for a child. Motherhood is lying in a prison cell, knowing your child is somewhere in the world, and choosing each day not to escape because escape might lead them to him."

Krishna: "I wanted to escape. Every day."

Devaki: "And you didn't. For my sake. That's love."

Krishna: "Yashoda's love was present. Mine was abstract."

Devaki: "Was it? When you closed your eyes at night, what did you see?"

Krishna: "You. What you might look like. What you might be doing."

Devaki: "And did you pray?"

Krishna: "Every moment. Every breath was a prayer for your safety."

Devaki: "Those prayers reached me. Every night in Vrindavan, I would feel a warmth I couldn't explain. Not Yashoda's love—that was close and fierce. This was distant and constant. Like the moon, always there even when hidden."

Krishna: "You felt me?"

Devaki: "I felt you. I didn't know what it was until I was older. Until I understood that I had two mothers—one who held my body and one who held my soul."

Devaki's eyes were filling.

Krishna: "I missed everything. Your first words. Your first steps. Your pranks and your dances and your—"

Devaki: "You missed the performance. You didn't miss me. The Krishna who played in Vrindavan is not separate from the Krishna before you now. Everything I became, I became because you gave me life and Yashoda gave me freedom. You are not in competition with her. You are collaborators."

Krishna: "She must resent me. The mother who appears after the hard work is done."

Devaki: "She speaks of you constantly. 'When you meet your real mother,' she would say, 'thank her for lending you to me.' She knew she was keeping what wasn't hers. She loved you before she met you, for the gift you gave."

Krishna: "What gift?"

Devaki: "Me. Flawed and frustrating and constantly running off on divine errands, but still—me."

Devaki laughed through her tears.

Krishna: "You were always running. Even in my womb, you wouldn't be still."

Devaki: "And I'm still running. To Dwaraka, to Hastinapura, to wherever dharma calls. But now— —I ask your blessing. The blessing I should have asked years ago, had the world been fair."

Krishna: "My blessing? What could I possibly offer that you don't already have?"

Devaki: "A mother's blessing. There is no substitute. No divine power replicates it. Yashoda's blessing made me who I was. Yours will complete who I am."

Devaki placed her hands on his head—hands that had ached to touch him for eighteen years, that had held only phantoms and hopes.

Krishna: "May you be victorious in all you do, May your friends know your love. May your enemies know your justice. And may you always remember that somewhere, a mother who never raised you loves you without limit."

Krishna rose and embraced her—not as a god embraces a devotee, but as a son embraces a mother, finally home.