Life changes and so do situations

Oct 01, 2017 Features / Columnists, My Column

There comes a time when we all sit and look back at our lives. Some of the memories will bring smiles, some will rekindle a desire for the days past and some will have us asking ourselves whether we did the right thing back then.
My life was interesting in more ways that I would like to think. For starters, I was a poor country boy who had a desire to get away from the poverty. There were eight of us children who shared a room. My last sibling came later but by then things had begun to change for the better.
Of course, it was crowded but we did not know it then. We fought for sleeping space but after a while we each owned a corner of the room.
The love we share today grew from those days when we were literally close. I grew up and moved away from home to start life on my own but there was always that string. When my friends lived a life of abandon I was there to send money back for those I left behind.
Today, my sisters and brothers have spread to different corners of North America. They are all doing well and the love still remains. In August, I went for my annual vacation and as usual my siblings shared a piece of me. On such occasions I wonder whether the love we had as children was the start of the successes we now enjoy.
A sister who lives in Staten Island knew I was coming and that I always visit another sister in Canada. She decided we could make it a family occasion so she bundled my mother who is now 93, her mother-in-law who is also 93, her husband and her son for that long drive to Ottawa. The union was one of the most enjoyable in my life.
From the Wednesday to the Sunday we assembled every night in the basement for the all-night parties. We did not need extra company because my sister in Canada has a grown daughter who lives not far away so she and her fiancé ended up forming the group. No one went to bed before four in the morning and there was never a dull moment.
When I returned home I looked around and found that we sometimes make preparations for family comfort only to be left holding the bag when the children grow up. I fashioned a three-bedroom house in which my two sons and my daughter lived. My two other daughters lived with their mothers. I know some may conclude that I was a philanderer but far from it.
I now look at my home and realize that while the space is still there my children have all left. The house is now too large for me because I only need a room. The upshot is that I now have a grandson and a niece. I simply could not be in the house all alone.
I am not alone in this. Last week a fire broke out in a building next door to the Prime Minister’s official residence. It was a three-storey building built, I suppose, to accommodate the man and his family. The family moved on so the man was left alone with a housekeeper. He occupied the upper flat and died trying to escape the blaze.
A few days ago I was in discussion with Mr. Glenn Lall and he simply said to me that children always move on once they have a desire to make their own lives. There was this wealthy man who wanted to sell his home and his business place. He said that his children are not returning and he is getting old so the place he called home and his business place mean nothing to him now. They have all outgrown him.
So it was that Mr. Lall told me that in Nandy Park and in Republic Park there are numerous empty houses. The parents were left alone while the children flew to whichever corner of the earth they chose. Pretty soon, there was simply no one there to keep the homes going.
Occasionally I travel along the Corentyne and I see many large and beautiful homes but no one lives in them. This is a case of preparing something in which the family would be comfortable but then the family moves on and we are left alone with our dreams of comfort.
Some of us in the Diaspora look back and talk of coming back in our old age so we build a comfortable place. But something happens and we do not tear ourselves from where were are so the place is there, having consumed money that could have gone to something else, but no one to live in it.
That is the case of so many of my relatives who migrated looking for better, found it, and are now hooked on their adopted homes.
So in looking back should we have asked ourselves about what the future would hold if we simply expand our domicile? So many of us are caught up in our previous decision but then again, many of us would say that while we live alone, we are not lonely.
My sister in New Jersey has been living alone ever since her husband died. When I go there she simply takes the opportunity to make use of her home. We would have breakfast out in the back where she has a tent and tables all laid out. She uses her magnificent dining room once a year—for Thanksgiving.
My woman in Canada also lives alone. When I visit she is ecstatic because then her home has a purpose other than a resting place.
This situation makes me realize that while we plan for the future we really do not plan for what the future brings. I do not regret making my house the place it is but on some days, the nostalgia forces me to look around and wonder at how life changes. From the days when I was crowded in a room with seven siblings to the days when I have space is indeed refreshing and heartening. But what if I had looked too far ahead and confined my children to a little room?
No. That would not have been the answer because from my vantage point if ever life takes turn for worse I could sell the house and use the money to see me to my grave. Truth is that my grandson would live there, raise his family, perhaps expand it and then come to the stage where he would look back and wonder at what he would do with the space.
Morbid? Perhaps but that is what happens when one sits and looks back at life. There are people who are too old to climb stairs. I wonder how they feel about not seeing the upper portion of their home.

1 thoughts on “Life changes and so do situations”

BORAPORK October 1, 2017 at 2:35 am

I have become so disenchanted with my fellow human beings that I greatly cherish my solitude. I have little or no commonality with most and I’m aghast at the hollow interests of most or the lack of any interest. The internet through its online content is keeping me fully occupied. I can read the great philosophers. I can read the classics and appreciate nature. The recent election of Donald Trump does not help my deep funk. I always wondered how intelligent Germans could have voted for Hitler. Not that Southern red neck are intelligent. I now question universal suffrage. The rise of a right wing faction in Germany and France. I prefer a pet to any human companionship.

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