Understanding Our Parents

Former United States senator John Demint once quipped, "One of the greatest titles in the world is parent, and one of the biggest blessings in the world is to have parents to call mom and dad." Mmmh, that's a great gem of wisdom coming from a politician, isn't it?

I don't know about you but for me, I am lucky to have parents I can call Mum and Dad. As the world prepared to celebrate Mother's Day last Sunday, I thought long and hard about the nature of my aging parents.

My Mum is extroverted but very forgetful. She likes sharing stories and has a tendency to talk to everyone in Kikuyu, our native language. Sometimes when she addresses a non-Kikuyu farmhand in Kikuyu, the farmhand has to mumble something in Swahili to make her switch to a language they can both understand.

Perhaps due to her poor mastery of the English language, Mum always refers to apples as pears, to TV remote control as charger, and to her bathroom faucet as chimney. I have tried to correct her several times about the real names of those things she misnames but my correction hasn't yet registered in her mind. That's how forgetful she is.

I first started noting Mum's forgetful memory in the year 2011 when she was a physically able shopkeeper in my hometown of Kiserian. Back then, she would sometimes call me "Njinju", then "Noru", then "Boti" before suddenly remembering that I am Thuita. (Njinju, Noru and Boti are my siblings.)

Since she was crippled by a stroke a decade ago, Mum claims she can't recall much of her past. She has sometimes had to rely on us in order for her to remember events from her past. There was a time she used to ask me if certain relatives attended the funeral of my Dad's sister in 2012.

About three months ago, I began instructing Mum not to tell me that I am sleeping when she calls me during the day. Despite warning her several times that she annoys me no end by telling me that I am sleeping in my room, she still forgets my instructions and asks me to wake up during the day.

Last Friday but one when she again vexed me for asking me to wake up at around noon, I commanded her to be telling me that I am reading, not sleeping. Given how forgetful she is, I wouldn't be surprised if she repeats the annoying habit of asking me to wake up when calling me during the day.

I however don't fault Mum for occasionally asking me to wake up because I used to doze a lot in my room during the day, a bad habit I struggled with for years and which I did away with this year. (Oh, there I go again - talking about my struggle with the emotion of sleep!)

Unlike my Mum who is extroverted, my Dad is more of an introvert. He rarely laughs. Neither does he share stories from his life. I always feel Dad has a lot of wisdom locked up in his head that could benefit people, especially my siblings and I. If only he were more talkative and outgoing like Mum!

Different though they are, Dad can be as forgetful as Mum. There was a night in 2016 or 2017 when he came home and absentmindedly poured milk into a container for a toilet-cleaning chemical. Both Mum and I laughed a lot about it, not understanding that Dad was just having one of those senior moments that are characteristic of old people.

Dad's forgetfulness has cost him money, for he has had to buy new cooking gas sooner after forgetting to switch off our gas cooker. Early this year for example, he left some tea warming on the gas cooker and forgot about it. 40 minutes or so later when he suddenly remembered tea was on the gas cooker, he went to the kitchen, only to find the tea had evaporated, leaving the sufuria (metal pot) as black as coal.

Recently, Mum informed me that Dad would have another surgery which was more serious than the one he had on his heart about two months ago. When I asked Mum which part of Dad's body was to be operated on, she declined to divulge more information to me. And I found it wise not to prod her into telling me more.

Dad had the surgery on the morning of last Saturday but one. The surgery made him spend three days in a hospital. And to this day, I am yet to know which part of his body was operated on. Suffice it to say that I was jazzed to see him come back home looking a bit healthy.

Because both my parents are sick and have pace-makers in their hearts, I have come to understand them when they become slow on the uptake. I have taken to heart the advice in the book of Sirach not to look down on our parents just because we are strong and healthy.

My beloved reader, I beseech you to also understand your parent(s) if one or both of them are still alive. Don't get so caught up in your own affairs that you forget they are also growing old. Honor and help them in any way you can. Belated happy Mother's Day!

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on understanding our parents, you might also enjoy another one on "Honouring Parents" that I wrote more than four years ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.