A close friend told me a story last week that was very touching. It was about someone he had helped decades ago but who never lost touch. Every Christmas, every New Year and every birthday, he would send prayerful messages followed by calls. Then, last Easter, he made a request for a physical meeting. My friend said he was reluctant but intrigued. His curiosity got the better of him eventually and he consented to a brief meeting. He was met with surprises. This guy brought diverse gifts, including crates of bottled water for my friend’s guests to slake their thirst with during Easter knowing my friend loves to entertain. It was a classic ‘widow’s mite’ from someone whose earning power had plummeted due to a disability. The message was in the gesture as well as in the content.

This story needs to be told in full to be better appreciated. Some two decades ago, my friend’s thriving business suffered a setback. Sympathizers felt it could be spiritual and offered a spiritual fightback by way of prayers and vigils. He met this young man in the process. They had some prayerful sessions together and went their ways. He recalled this young man as exuberant and witty with a good business that more than paid his bills. Time flew past. Then he heard through a mutual contact that the young man suffered a sudden physical ailment that virtually paralyzed him. It was a tough blow financially and psychologically for this young man. He had bills that couldn’t wait- children in schools, including one about to finish medical school, a house that was half-completed and a mounting medical bill. His self-esteem also got hit and he nearly went through a tough depression. My friend said he tried to offer compassionate help as much as he could and to move on. But this man as I said, didn’t move on. And like the biblical leper who came back to thank Jesus, he came last Easter to thank his benefactor with gifts. But the gifts were half the story. The other half was that he wanted to unburden his mind by saying thank you ‘to the living’ and not ‘the dead’. In the process, he talked about how my friend’s - his benefactor - financial interventions at critical moments literally saved him from depression. He said he didn’t want to wait for his benefactor’s funeral tributes before recounting what had been done by him.

This is typical of the many stories I have heard – grateful strangers looking for their benefactors, and when not possible, for their offspring – to say thank you in words and deeds. Even those who have not done so hardly forget the good deeds done to them and would gladly payback if the opportunity arose. But is it the same thing with children? The product of the loins and beneficiaries of financial and emotional sacrifices? Social media doesn’t seem to think so. Recently, I have heard songs and read poems where parents, especially fathers, talk of abandonment. If that is a strong word, then neglect. Of old men sitting alone and waiting forlornly, for the phone to ring at least if the bell would not chime. I have heard voices tinged with bitterness and regret as they recount their experiences of children living only for their own families. I am also of the age where I have seen people close to me battle the challenges of widowhood and loneliness. Many of them don’t need financial support. Just emotional support which are, in the main, given perfunctorily by these ‘busy children’. But then, children have a right to live their lives and conquer their own mountains just as their dads did when they were young. If there is any regret I have though, it is that I didn’t spend enough time with my dad - who passed on when I was ‘busy’ chasing my own rainbow professionally- sitting on the balcony together and just shooting breeze. But I, like many sons of my generations, didn’t have a relationship outside education, work and family with him. We didn’t sit down just to talk about ‘the weather’ or ‘societal gossip’ of the time – there literally had to be a reason for a conversation. As an old father now, I know I would like to spend time with my children talking about nothing and everything. I suppose my father, like many fathers, would have wanted the same thing too. But he was a product of his time when fathers were supposed to be strict and largely uncommunicative. It didn’t help that we didn’t live in the same town and there were no mobile phones at the time.

I sense regret in these songs I hear and these poems I read. But I also sense entitlement. It is unmistakable. I wonder if there is a subtle envy for lost youth in this feeling of entitlement. That your child should, in a way, compensate for the youth you have lost? Is it being taken for granted that a child you sacrificed your youthful energies and resources for should naturally be at your beck and call in old age? If that is true, then it is emotional blackmail. Children on the other hand, are not blameless. Far from it. They also feel entitled to the many sacrifices their parents make. They are wired by society to believe that responsible fathers took care of their families. That their dads had therefore, done nothing more than what society expects of them. Strangers on the other hand, don’t have this feeling of entitlement. It is the reason many appreciate every act of kindness extended to them and some will go to any length to at least show it if they cannot pay back.

Old age is a very vulnerable period. The older, the more dependent people get. It is also lonelier when the other half is no longer there. This is when they need the care of family, especially children most. But parents should appreciate whatever assistance they get from their children rather than make demands for it. Or feel entitled to it. Children have their lives to live; their own demons to slay. And like a friend said the other day, ‘who’s life is it anyway? This is not exempting children from caring for their parents in old age. It is actually in their enlightened self-interest, knowing that whatever goes around comes around. They too will get old.

Finally, like the story I started with, we should never be tired of offering compassionate help to people wherever and whenever we can. We can never tell who will be there for us in old age.

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