YESTERDAY, I was so glad to have attended a birthday party that was like no other. My friend and batchmate invited me and a few others, as they honored their mother on her 99th birthday. With a grand lunch that had been more dominantly-attended by her relatives from all over the world, only a handful of us ‘outsiders’ were the fortunate ones to have witnessed to the joyous affair. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, today marks the 24th birthday of my younger son. So, it’s basically numbers and math, numbers and math as a lot could be said of the spaces between them and their years. So almost like that tabloid game of Spot the difference.
Surely, compared to the neatly piled-up and filed precious memories of any calmly nonagenarian, my son’s still has a long way to go with his yet-raw 24-bit. They might as well be like ice and fire; with the impatience of youth contrasted against her seasoned wealth of confidence and experience. Truly, while one has the world as his oyster, the other has all but owned the world.
Yet let us not forget, both are of their own separate worlds, co-existing only so-to-speak because of the interlinked roles they have to play. At the party, touching tributes by relatives, most notably coming from her loving grandchildren, described the nurturing countenance of a ‘Grannie’ patiently imparting whatever it is to be known of the outside world. This just affirms the fact that, all mother figures by nature are the initial teachers of their young, just as in the animal kingdom, where lionesses or mama bears guide and train their cubs. That is why descriptors like ‘wise’ and knowledgeable’ are always affixed when we refer to the elderly.
However, if I were to think of a single word that would best encapsulate their hidden and most precious essence, I would then hands-down, settle with ‘cool’.
Anyone who has seen more of the world, perhaps not only in the literal sense, must indeed be wizened (and not wary) of its ways. It’s this cool demeanor that’s the more appreciable trait that I see with these, our beloved sages. Generations may pass eventually stacking over whatever accomplishments previous generations may have offered, but one thing remains true. We will still need to pass through that initial stage of restless youth and then when we survive it, move on to patient maturity.
It is this delicate interplay in us which makes us what we are, no matter how hard we deny it. If not for anything else, this is our bond.
