There is something that is very close to my heart. This might be the shortest blog I will ever write … but it might be the most important one. Each one of us were raised by someone. It might have been your own parents … it might have been other family members. We all were dealt with our own unique set of circumstances, after all.
If your parents or caregiver didn’t abandon you when you could not care for yourself, you are forever indebted to them for fulfilling their parental duties towards you. I don’t mean that in a negative way. If you had good parents or caregivers, you should be forever grateful.
The last thing you should be doing is to not visit them or not be actively involved in their lives. Specially if you live close by….
Care for those who once cared for you.
That is the ultimate honour.
I cannot express more how much I admire someone who gives their parents their time in their old age. To me, that’s the ultimate display of character.
In this day and age, old age homes and retirement villages offers excellent facilities to look after the elderly. For this reason, I am not advocating children should physically look after their parents.
No.
All I am advocating is that children should give their parents their time. Visit them. Take them out for meals. Let them visit for weekends. Simple things like that. Simply give them your time. Don’t put them in an old age home and think a call per week is sufficient. If you are guilty of that, you are failing in your duties towards your parents. I would go as far as saying you are seriously lacking character.
The most beautiful thing to me, is when I see children enjoying to frequently visit their parents. They are actively involved in their parents’ lives. They take them to run errants. Take them shopping. Take them to the doctor. They take them home for weekend visits.
There is nothing more beautiful than to see an old person’s eyes light up when you visit them and spend time with them. It is a beautiful thing. On the other hand there is nothing more heartbreaking than to hear how sad an old person is because their children (who lives close by) do not visit them.
How bad is it that a child, who lives just 10km away from her mother would rather order a taxi to drive her mother to the doctor? She does not visit her mother ever. She does not pick her up ever. She is in perfect health and financially independent. Her deceased husband provided extremely well for her. How can someone like this even look at themselves in the mirror?
How shameful is that?
That’s what is happening within my own family.
That’s my own sister I am referring to.
Another one of my siblings has got all the time in the world to go camping, gambling and travelling all around, but cannot drive 60km to visit his own mother for just thirty minutes every two weeks. He didn’t even call her on her birthday. His wife did. They simply have no interest in giving my mother a few minutes of their time.
Yes, my older brother.
I might add he is a very good guy all around. I cannot fault him in any way, except that he has simply lost interest in his own mother. So is my sister. She is a very good person in general.
Did my mother do anything to deserve such shameful treatment from her two oldest children? No, she has always been a model of a mother to her five children.
After much deliberation, I have concluded that my two older siblings suffer from some sort of sickness. They lack something. They lack character. Where my other two siblings and I would go out of our way to visit my mother and to run errants for her, my two older siblings simply cannot be bothered even to visit her for ten minutes.
My mother is such a good person that she makes excuses on their behalf. While this behaviour upsets my other siblings and I, she has simply accepted her fate. She has simply accepted that her two older children are who they are.
My mother raised us despite receiving a raw deal from my unfaithful father, who eventually left her for another woman. Never once did she use alcohol or smoked or messed around with men. No, she was always a model woman and mother, who stood strong for her five kids despite extreme hardship and heartache. She found a way to raise all five of us … and she did a damn fine job of it.
Despite this, her two oldest children cannot even bring themselves to visit her for ten minutes in her old age.
That’s the highest form of betrayal.
To me, this is evidence of a very low character in my two older siblings.
If I was president, children who neglected their parents would have been jailed. That’s how strongly I feel about this issue. Just like parents get prosecuted when they neglect their parental duties towards their children when they are small, so children should be prosecuted when they neglect their parents in their old age.
Now, I know there are very bad parents who had abused their children or made their childhood hell for many reasons. Granted, those deserve to be neglected and avoided by their children. No problem with that. As you sow, so you shall reap.
The Universe functions on energy. Our own deeds, thoughts and words draw in whatever energy we omit into the Universe. It follows that good energy, words and deeds are critically important. If you understand the above, you will understand that neglecting your elderly parents for no valid reason, is a negative action … and negative actions will draw in more of the same in to you.
Just show some character, man.
Go visit your parents. Spend time with them. Take them out for a meal or coffee. Take them home for a weekend. Put a smile on their faces. Show them you love them and care for them.
Don’t upset them with your hidden agendas. Make their last few years on this planet pleasant … full of love and wrinkled smiles.
How difficult is that?
Show your parents the ultimate honour.
You want respect?
Then show your parents you love and care for them. Give them your time. The world will respect you for that. I would respect you for that.
There can be no higher honour than caring for the ones who once cared for you.
Be a honourable person. Show your parents the ultimate honour by loving and caring for them.
Is an hour of your time per week really so difficult to give to the one who didn’t turn her back on you when you needed her most as a child?
The ultimate honour.
That’s what your parents deserve.
Be an honourable person.
Show them the Ultimate Honour.
Gerhard J. Loots 