There are days such as today, when the floodgates of the old memories open up, reminding me of the the times when life tested my family members. These surging memories do not let me forget the 17 months when my father was recovering from a fracture and could not join his work resulting in this 17 month long period of 'without pay'. This was the time when my mother single handedly managed the house, our expensive studies and her workplace. Now, I shudder to think of the possibilities which could have happened if my mother did not have her job. Maybe we could not boast of our rich educational background then as we do now...................
Throughout their life as parents, my father and my mother, have always thought about investing on us, their children, rather than investing for their future lives. Whatever money they could manage to save at the end of their job lives (they could not serve till their usual retirement ages because they worked in a sick industry which closed down before they could complete their tenure) were chosen to spend on our higher education and better future prospects. No, they never complained. They only tried to make us realise the value of their hard earned money.
There was a time when we used to think about returning the money they spent for us. We used to calculate how much we had made them spent......now I realise how foolish were we. Though, both of us, my brother and I, manage to earn much more than they spent on our education, we can never return the time, the knowledge, the unconditional love they invested on us. How can we return the scorching heat or rainy evenings they had spend on sourcing second hand books from college street? How can we return the exhausting train journeys from Durgapur to Kolkata and back? How can we return the pain they took to carry the heavy loads of second hand books back to us? How can we return the smiles which radiated on their faces with our smallest of achievements? How can we return the days when they walked more and ate less to save every hard earned penny?
The only savings they have, are us. They did not judge us while investing diligently on us so that we turn into perfect human beings in the true sense of the term 'human'. I don't know whether their investments are successful. The sole regret I will be taking back with me to my grave is that by the time we could gift them some happy moments as a token of gratitude for all that they have done for us, they chose to leave us all alone to travel to the land of no return.
Throughout their life as parents, my father and my mother, have always thought about investing on us, their children, rather than investing for their future lives. Whatever money they could manage to save at the end of their job lives (they could not serve till their usual retirement ages because they worked in a sick industry which closed down before they could complete their tenure) were chosen to spend on our higher education and better future prospects. No, they never complained. They only tried to make us realise the value of their hard earned money.
There was a time when we used to think about returning the money they spent for us. We used to calculate how much we had made them spent......now I realise how foolish were we. Though, both of us, my brother and I, manage to earn much more than they spent on our education, we can never return the time, the knowledge, the unconditional love they invested on us. How can we return the scorching heat or rainy evenings they had spend on sourcing second hand books from college street? How can we return the exhausting train journeys from Durgapur to Kolkata and back? How can we return the pain they took to carry the heavy loads of second hand books back to us? How can we return the smiles which radiated on their faces with our smallest of achievements? How can we return the days when they walked more and ate less to save every hard earned penny?
The only savings they have, are us. They did not judge us while investing diligently on us so that we turn into perfect human beings in the true sense of the term 'human'. I don't know whether their investments are successful. The sole regret I will be taking back with me to my grave is that by the time we could gift them some happy moments as a token of gratitude for all that they have done for us, they chose to leave us all alone to travel to the land of no return.
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