The Circle of Life

It is your turn now.

You are used to seeing them active and managing work and home without flagging even a little bit. Now the gait is getting slower, the hands once soft and manicured, strong and sturdy are as lined and wrinkled as autumn leaves. The back bents a little more with each passing season. You see the changes and yet you don’t want to see them.
They taught you how to tell time and helped your plump little fingers dial your first number on the phone, but now your smartphones and gizmos are beyond them and you curb your irritation when for a thousandth time they ask you how to send a simple sms or check mail. 

They were the ones who taught you how to drive and then drove you crazy with their constant back seat driving. Now it’s your turn to worry when they take the car and they are not home when they said they would.

They could take away the pain from your bruises and cuts with a few soft words. A cool hand was enough to sooth a forehead burning with fever. Now it’s your turn to fret over their back aches and their blood sugar scores and get exasperated when they refuse to go for their medical checkups.

From asking their advice on everything mundane and not so mundane, you find yourself voicing your opinion more and more often and not liking it when they don’t do as you say. From sharing everything with them, you start hiding a few unpleasant facts so that they don’t worry. Instead you are the one who develops worry lines thinking about them.

The changes are there. Almost imperceptible, but there. Inspite of all their show of independence, there is a sudden lack of confidence, a slight dithering in decision making, an occasional need for reassurance.

And yet they stubbornly refuse to give in. They still manage their own affairs, want to travel alone, drive themselves everywhere. They might walk slowly, but still snatch away their hand in irritation when you try to guide them over the uneven path.

Their egos are fragile and so you try to indulge them. But slowly, unobtrusively you take over the driving, the weekly shopping, their paperwork. You start cooking more often, although you’d avoided the kitchen like the plague earlier. You are the one haggling more and more with the electricians and the plumbers and making sure the house runs smoothly.

And suddenly you realize that you are the generation that now has to step in and take charge. At the back of your mind you always knew that this day would come. But when it does, you don’t want to accept it.

You long to fling the responsibility back at them, refuse to acknowledge the changes and what they mean. But you can’t. This you must accept. It’s inevitable.

It’s the circle of life.