– Representational Image
I’ve just returned from a visit to a senior spinster colleague of mine – She is in her late 70’s now. She’s healthy (for her age), hearty – her laughter is still infectious, she is still active – she climbed down two flights of stairs to see us out – and she is contented. She lives with her spinster sister in a second floor flat that is bought and paid for from their savings and is situated next to a hospital, should the need arise. But the need may not arise, certainly not soon. Theirs is a story of contentment without children.
But this story of contentment has a corollary! Young couples who do not want children, until the empty nest syndrome grips their wrists and they fret for one, if not two and the older couples whose children, either one or two have fled the nest to build their own empty nests elsewhere, mostly far far away. The world is a global village they say and distances are but minor irritants…. but no they are pertinent distances. Does absence make the heart grow fonder yonder?
Certainly they are comfortable without children, but can they be content without their smiles, their messes, their follies, their mischief, their shenanigans – sometimes even brushes with the law and authorities as they fall into bad company in their teens. Or is it that without those head aches, contentment is a given? My own kids needed their mother to find their clothes, and books, and clean up the mess on the bed.
If nothing they wanted her presence in the house and she would revel in that thought though it would not show on her face – that was the secret that only I was aware of. Then there’s the time they would ask for my signature on their leave letters and report cards. I secretly loved the attention it brought. We would tell them be responsible, be self sufficient and focused on their futures in this hard hard world where everybody competes for money and fame.
Then they nested far away, and what remains is the thoughts of their presence, their mischief and a few clothes scattered in their room cupboards. They were arrows in the wind shot from our bows that went away and kissed the wind along the way. All we have is a memory of their laughs and especially their occasional hugs. They never said I love you Mum or I love you Dad, but we know for sure they did!
They often didn’t do what we thought they should, how they should, and end up where we thought they would. But they are ours only for a while and more importantly for a smile and once in a way a hug. The rest of the time they were their own.
They come to visit, they bring their bags and gifts, and solutions to our issues – practical and logistical, and then pack them and go with gifts of love from us leaving us calm and peaceful now, but are we content? As they shut the door behind them, (something we insist they did when they were young) do they think they are leaving us content? Are we content? Do we worry about our kids and should we? Should they worry about us? or look after us? Are they content in their nests or should they be content in ours? All these queries are being answered by the plethora of Senior retirement homes that are coming up around us…. and perhaps answered by Poet and Philosopher Khalil Gibran in his 1923 Poem on Children. It’s prophetic in modern times. It reads like this
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.”
We want our children to be with us for as long we live, to live the life we thought they could or should but God, you love your children much more than we do and you have different strokes for different folks – so each is his own and we must remain content in that. Bless them, take care of them, wherever they may be, however they may be. We rest content, if they rest content.
