Old is Gold?

Incident # 1

An aged (75 years) widower is staying with his son, daughter-in-law and grand-son. The widower cannot see and hear properly owing to age. Friday he was very upset with this DIL and Son for not changing his dirty bed spread. He must have had an argument and unable to take this any further... decided to walk out of the house...

He came back in 30 minutes, took with him some cash. Next 2 days, nobody heard any news about what happened to this grandpa. Nobody was putting any efforts to find out where he was, whether he was well...

Saturday late evening, the son received a call from a stranger. The stranger said "Sir, there is an old man sitting here in a park. He gave me your number and said he was your father. Apparently the money he had with him was swindled by few boys. He does not have a penny on him. He does not seems to have eaten anything nor slept over the last 1.5 days... can you please come and take him?"

The son went and brought him back on saturday night. The old person was dilirious and down with throat infection. Apparently he had stumbled and fallen in the park.

What must have the father gone through while requesting the stranger to phone his son?

Incident # 2

A son takes his mother to a distant relatives house. After the visit, he got up to go. He turned to his mother and said "I am leaving you here... I dont want you to come back to my house - ever."

Incident # 3

The son is on a visit to his home town. His mother calls him into a room and tells him "My son, I have been living with your brother for several years now. But he is saying he will not take care of me going forward. Can you please provide me with a shelter somewhere?"

The son, who has his own house in a metro and has sons himself - all very well settled, does not respond.

Incident # 4

On a Saturday morning, a granny, diagnosed with breathlessness problem is hospitalized. Doctors at the hospital are unable to figure out what's wrong.

She is able to walk, talk and all vital signs are fine but complains of breathlessness. Her children organize for an ambulance to take her to a bigger hospital (Apollo Mallya). All kids, grandkids are with her. They all have taken permission or leave to be with her because they all truly love her. It is a Saturday.

She has severe back ache. She cannot reach her back herself to soothe the pain. So requests her daughter and grand daughter, who are beside her, to help her. Daughter and Grand daughter are very happy and more than willing to help out the dear mother and grand mother.

As both of them start massaging her back, her eyes fill with tears... Grand daughter asks her "Anama (paternal granny in konkani), why are you crying?"
She responds "I heard that they are getting an ambulance to shift me to a bigger hospital. I am feeling very sad for the amount of hardship I am giving to all of you. I wish I could make it any more easy"

The grand daughter's eyes filled with tears - Even in pain, her granny is thinking about the hardship she was causing to others while forgetting her own pain. Grand daughter's heart salutes her granny.

Granny passed away same day mid night from Brain Hemorrhage...

WHAT ARE WE DOING TO KEEP OUR AGED PARENTS WITH US? AND TRULY HAPPY?
When all they have in their hearts is good wishes for us - their children?

Injections and Pain

Saturday was my daughter, Aditi's innoculation day. She got a booster shot.

We were at the clinic at 8.30 a.m. The doctor we took her to, gave us 2 choices (its a consumer's world !!!):

(a) local booster injection - very painful - Rs. 700
(b) phoren made booster injection - very LESS painful - Rs. 1800
Which one do you want? (as if we have a choice.......humph!)

My husband immediately said, we will go with Option-a (without consulting me, the little one's mother)

And by the time I realized what was happening, in went the locally made injection.

Doctor warned us that she would go through immense pain and fever bout for 2 days.

On our way back, I brought this topic for discussion:

I (to my husband) - why did you go for the local injection?
He - I thought it was cost effective. Eitherways, injections bring in pain
I (said heroically) - Its okay... how long can we protect her from pain?

May be I spoke too early.

By noon, the pain she was undergoing was clearly evident. Her plight was unseeable to me. She was crying in pain each time she wanted to move her left leg (on which she received the shot).
She was also running high temperature. Although, she was bearing it herocially, my heart crushed seeing her in this state... what made is worse was her inablility to tell us what she was going through.... she is still learning to speak at 1.5 years ...

All said and done... parents are parents... we want to shield our kids from pain and suffering as much as possible.... so, i resolved to go in for the costlier injection next time ...

To hell with money.... I don't want my daughter to suffer like this... I don't want to see tears in her beautiful eyes .... I want to see her happy and smiling always...

Waves

A friend forwarded these images. I was struck with awe... How I wished I were standing by the beach looking at them or even surfing over them :p

I do hope to learn surfing someday just to tide over these waves. Must be awesome fun and a great experience...

Enjoy Maadi :)

My Bundle of Joy

Here is the 109 Brat !!! The omnipresent one who gets shouted and screamed by all commuters and neighbours for recklessly riding his bicycle (4-wheeler actually :p).

Does he look like he listens to his parents?

Pain of Separation

I am in a wistful mood today. I did not sleep well most part of yesterday night. Aakash is down with severe case of food poisoning and I had to nurse him back to health. He was bright as a spring by the time I left for office. I thanked God with the drowsiness catching up with me as I got into the car.

My day started with meetings. Meeting with my a senior of mine left me numb in pain. Very soon, this senior at work will be leaving to the United States on a special assignment. This hit me hard. One lady I have been totally bowled out by and learnt a lot from - It is difficult to brush off the budding camradarie I was beginning to develop with her. There was so much I could learn from her. Suddenly I feel lot emptier.

For the first time, she talked about her personal life. My heart went out for her. Little does she know that I was once standing close to following that path myself.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

On the other hand, Jo is leaving the organization to join her Hero in UK. Over the last few years, Sa and Jo have grown to be part of my DNA at Target. Very difficult to replace either of them with new people. But situations sometimes force you to go look for newer relationships and friendship, find new faces and network. It is not really easy for you to go build a bond with just anyone. And this is what I am going to face not too far from today.

I am half way into this year and taking stock of my life. Lot of things have worked well till now... but looks like I am going to lose more than gain before this year ends... :(

Mother's Day - Follow Up

Now, for the other side of story. Yesterday around 8 p.m. my son was lying on my lap. He had had his dinner and was really drowsy. I lifted him in my arms like I would do a wee little baby and carried him up the stairs.

He asked me: "Amma, do you have the strength to carry me upstairs?"
I said:

"I will carry you upstairs
As long as I have some strength
But when I grow old and have no strength,
Will you care for me the same way?"

He immediately retorted "No, I will not take care of you"

Shocked, I asked "Why?"
He replied without one bit hesitation "You always shout and scream at me. That's why."

Mother's Day ended this way for me!!!

Mother's Day Gift

As was routine summer-time activity, I had planned to prepare sandige. This time I was trying out the chakli sandige - my maiden effort. I had taken guidance from someone on preparing the batter and had followed instructions accordingly. However, post lunch, when I sat down to make the chaklis, I realized that the dough was too hard.

I had to put lot of effort to press the chaklis on to the paper mat. My son, Aakash, who was "helping" me saw my efforts and said "Amma, you should not work so hard. It's a waste".

Amidst all the hardship I was facing, I could not relate his statement. I looked at him and asked "Why are you saying this?".

He said "Amma, you should not work so hard because nobody pays you for all your hardwork at home". I was stunned. To hear this from a 5 year old was amazing. I responded "Yes, I know nobody will pay me for this. But then, I also know how much you and Aditi will enjoy eating these sandiges once they are ready. I work hard so you guys get to eat tasty things".

Immediately he came running and hugged me and said "Thank you amma for making all these things for us". I felt sooooooooooo gooooooood. It was a perfect Mother's Day gift any mother would get :)

Thank you very much, Aakash