A look on both sides of the spectrum here, translated…
One day, mom said to me, with a whole lot of gratitude, “I’m truly blessed! Because I have daughter to accompany me.” My youngest sister stayed single, after working for many years, she’d decided to head back home, return back to our parents’ side to accompany them, the rest of us, who live and work faraway, we’re all, very grateful toward her kindness toward our parents.
Recently, I’d gone to visit an old friend, she’s in her midlife years, she’s also unwed, not that she didn’t want to get married, it’s just that Cupid had not knocked on her doors. With an elderly mother who’s in her eighties, every day after work, she’d rushed home, to play the role of a fitting daughter, accompanying her mother in conversation, fearing that her mother may feel too lonely at home alone. Every time the weekends rolled around, she’d taken her mom out to visit places, to enjoy the foods locally, everybody who knew them feel, that they were, a very blessed mother-daughter pair.
My boss has a friend, with a lot of money, he had two daughters, but, for the sake of her children’s futures, he’d sent her two daughters to the U.S. to study, and naturally, after they get older, they’d lived in the U.S. and found work there too.
A few years ago, I’d heard, that his daughters are both married and had children, their lives are perfect now. But, toward their own parents, their daughters are so far off in the U.S., when they wanted to see them, to talk to them about what’s on their minds, they can only use webcam to do it; when they wanted to hug their grandkids, they can only look longingly at the photographs on the computers, and imagined their arms around their grandchildren, there was a scent of sorrow and sadness about that.
The two elderly were without the company of their own offspring, they don’t have grandkids, running around, circling them, that sense of loneliness felt inside, they may have to wait until the depth of the nights, then, slowly, digest it all up on their own.
Even though, the age-old beliefs of “having children is for the purpose of our old age”, but, as the children couldn’t be close in physical distance to the parents, to show them constant care or accompaniment, I believe this, must be a sort of a regret in the parents’ lives! What could be used, to define a happy mom? I think, having one’s kids around, that, is it.
And so, this, is a story of longing, of how the parents want their kids near, but, because the parents FAILED to help the younger generation establish that strong sense of family, and so, that, is why, now, as the parents grow old, they’re, all alone, and, they’d longed for their offspring, and grandkids’ company, but hey, we the younger generation have our lives to live too!