Dear Future Grandchildren
(From your grandmother in her late teens)
I love you. And I am saying so years before I meet your grandfather and probably a decade before your parents are born because I know how badly I have wanted to have a family with you.
When you move out, I will miss you back home.
I won’t have to do much at home and the loneliness would make it worse.
I would be thinking about the days when I married your grandfather and had our children.
From finding the best school for your parents to resolving their conflicts, from cooking them food to putting them to bed, from hearing their first words to seeing them move out of the house, I am sure all those years would have passed in the blink of an eye.
But we never felt lonely as we always had something to look forward to.
From their education to their marriage and their kids, something or the other would have kept us engaged.
And we never complained.
But when we retire and our kids get busy with their kids, we would somewhat lose a purpose to keep going.
It would feel like my children have forgotten their way home.
I would be startled by how weak my body has become, and I’d hate looking at myself in the mirror.
My heart wouldn’t accept the ugly old lady in the mirror.
Sometimes, I find my grandmother looking at me with moist eyes.
When I asked her, she said, “I used to look just like you.
And look at me now.
You remind me of the days when I was young and healthy.”
She spent her whole life looking after her husband, four children, and a dozen of grandchildren.
Seeing her missing her youth breaks my heart.
My life will be pretty similar, plus the career hustle.
What I am afraid of is abandonment.
You will probably use technology that I won’t understand. I will be the “old generation” for you and might not understand your lifestyle.
You will get busy in your lives by the time I retire, and you might not have time for me.
You will be scattered all around the globe for your careers.
I don’t want to be a burden to you people but having built a home with hopes to live with you, I will not want to die in solitude.
I’d want to live with you.
I understand not all of you can be around but try to surprise me by coming home sometimes.
I am sure I miss you guys.
I wonder how my grandparents feel when my parents and we children leave early morning while they have to stay in the house with no job or business to do.
When we return home exhausted, we eat food silently and slip into our beds.
I feel pity for them.
I hate when someone shouts at them because they can’t hear it the first time, or when they don’t understand the technology, or when everyone is getting late, and they are lingering in the house with their walkers.
I am likely to be a similar source of frustration for you.
I would have loved to make baby food for you and your parents all my life, but when my eyesight goes weak and my hands stop working, please don’t abandon me.
Feed your grandmother.
My grandparents are the strongest people I have come across and seeing them wail about old age scares me to death.
I am a coward and can’t imagine how I will live that phase of my life.
But it is inevitable, right?
So, when our doctor’s visits become a ritual, our back bends down, and we turn weak, take care of your grandparents.
We might never say it, but we need you.
And if one of us leaves the other, we need you more than anything else.
We have neglected our wishes to foster yours to die with our family, so do not forget us.
I love you guys a lot ❤
