I met a new friend and he is 62, he is a friendly and also a very well educated person as he was once an English language teacher and also an editor in a famous newspaper. He is well exposed and had raised good children who got scholarships to study in UK. He loves his family and he taught them well when the children were young and they exceled in their studies with strings of distinctions in public examination results. It is a pity that with his son as medical doctor, and daughter as some high flying investment company senior officer, he is left alone to stay in Malaysia for the past 8 years. The wife left him to UK to take care of the sick mother-in-law of his daughter. Money is never a problem for him as he owns properties all over.
He told me that it was a mistake for him to teach his children too well, otherwise they would have remained in Malaysia. One could imagine his frustration when he uttered such words! He wanted his doctor son to marry a local but the son married a British girl instead. And he wanted him to become a specialist doctor in Kuantan hospital, even to the extent of buying a house nearby the hospital just for him, but the son opted to be a British and resides in UK and never wanted to come back. It seems all odds are against him!
Maybe his wife was right, son and daughter should have their own lives, and it is their lives! And they have choosen their destiny the way they wanted it, and parents should not interfere at all. Whatever the wish of parents to remain as wish only. Now he is a frustrated old man living in solitude. Thinking that all his good friends and buddies are in Kuantan and he shifted from Kemaman to live there. Unfortunately at the later part, most of his friends moved to Kuala Lumpur, probably just to follow their sons and daughters now working and staying in the capital city. This old man simply just has no one in Kuala Lumpur to go to. Should there be any one of his family members staying there, he might have followed suit and shifted there as well to be with his buddies.
It is definitely not the wish of parents having their children far away from home when they grow up. It is hard for a man after living many years in Malaysia and then is forced by circumstances to uproot himself and settle in another country or place. They might feel proud to have children capable of residing in advanced countries like US and UK, but this proudness is short-lived, and the yearning to see their children by their side becomes a more dominating factor as they grow older each day. It is not a question of selfishness that parents want to keep their children around, it is the kind of "lost and emptiness" feeling that cripple them after they had strived for the most part of their life to raise children, and eventually they are too remote to be seen. It is a sadness but sometime it is a fact of life that we all probably have to accept it one day.
It is only when our sons and daughters, they themselves become parents at later part, reaching a stage some day when their own children grow up and they would be able to feel and taste the same bitter medicine. Probably then they will realize how bitter life could be at that age.
Come to think of it, could I come to the same predicament like this friend of mine when I reach that stage? Well, I do not think of such problem when I was just a few years younger, is this really a sign of getting old now?
I always tell my wife and myself not to expect too much of our children when they all have grown up.
ReplyDeleteNever hope that they help us in as far as money or material things are concerned. They will have their families to look after.
Also do not hope that they will offer too much help in looking after ourselves when we are old and frail
It is all up to them. Educate them to follow what Allah ask of them in as far as looking after their parents. ONly then they will be obliged to give us their TLC when we need them the most.
AND please look after you parents well...your children will then look after you well too. REMEMBER THIS!