This I heard from a friend – he was told by his friend - an IIT graduate, let us name him VB. The narration goes like this. When his parents left for their native place and he booked air tickets for them against their demand for train tickets. In fact, his parents had never traveled by air before, so he just took this opportunity to make them get the experience of flying. The moment he handed over the tickets to his father, he was surprised to see that he had booked them by air. The excitement was very apparent on his face, waiting for the time of travel. Just like a school boy, he was preparing himself on that day and he alongwith his friends went to the airport to see them off, they passed through all the formalities, right from using the trolley for their luggage, the baggage check-in and asking for a window seat and waiting restlessly for the security check-in to happen. He was overjoyed himself and VB too, was overcome with joy watching his parents have all these experiences.

When his parents about to go in for their security check-in,his father walked back straight to VB with tears in his eyes, hugged him and then thanked for giving this opportunity.He became very emotional and it was not as if VB had done something great but the fact is that this meant a great deal to him.

When he said thanks, VB just smiled and told him there is no need to thank him. But later, thinking about the entire incident, he looked back to his own life as a child, how many dreams his parents were able to fulfill for him. As a school teacher, he had to face many problems, hardships, financial problems etc.., however irrespective of their affordability, they have provided him the best education he could have and fulfilled all his needs and tried to make him happy and all these years.

Just think ……….

Like him, we also just think, as children, how many dreams our parents were able to fulfill for us, irrespective of their hardships, financial turbulences etc.. Without understanding the financial situation, we ask for cricket bats, footballs, news dresses, toys, etc. Irrespective of their ability, they have provided to all our needs and tried to make us happy.

Did we ever think about the sacrifices they had to make to accommodate many of our wishes?

Did we ever say thanks for all that they have done for us?

Similarly, today when it comes to our children, we always think that we get admitted them in good schools, to give them good dresses, school bags, shoes etc.. school buses. Regardless of the amount of donation and other expenses, we always make ensure that we give the child the best, in fact these are not big deal for us these days, as we were able to get decent jobs and good salaries, but we never think about our parents, who made lot of sacrifices to fulfill our wishes to make us graduates, engineers, doctors, programmers etc. We sometimes tend to forget that our parents have sacrificed a lot for our sake to see us happy, so when it is come to our turn, it is our responsibility to ensure that some of their dreams are realized and the things they enjoy, what they failed to enjoy when they were young. It is our responsibility to ensure that they experience all those and their life is complete.

Many times, when our parents had asked us questions, we actually answered them back without patience, we even jumped at them saying why they ask simple questions, though we can answer them with a word or two. But when our kids ask us something, we answer them very politely, we do not realize that how they would have felt when we rashly said to them.

Let us realize that old age is a second childhood and just as we take care of our children, the same attention and same care needs to be given to our parents and elders. Rather than parents saying thank you to us, we would want to say sorry for making him wait so long for this small dream. We should realize how much our parents have sacrificed for our sake and we should do our best to give the best possible attention to all their wishes.

Just because they are old does not mean that they will have to give up everything and keep sacrificing for their grandchildren as well. They have wishes too, the wishes they earlier put away to make us happy and to stand on our own.