I was trying to thread a needle to sew a button onto a shirt and try as I might I just couldn’t get the thread into the eye of the needle. I squinted, tried another pair of glasses but to no avail. I finally had to call one of my kids to the aid and as I watched him do it in a jiffy, I was reminded of my mom peering over her glasses, watching me doing the same for her.
A very young me, with all faculties intact, was perplexed why my mom couldn’t do such a simple thing. I was jolted out of my thoughts when my son asked, ‘It’s so easy, you seriously couldn’t do it?’ Life has come a full circle!
As I advance into the third quarter of my life there are many such déjà vu moments but with role reversals!
I remember one of my sons struggling to write the letter ‘g’ when he was little. I’d guide him, trying my best not to lose patience,’ First, you write ‘c’ then you go up, then down and then to your left and bingo! You are done!’
He would keep saying that for days while writing that letter with a loud ‘BINGO’ at the end and we would laugh hysterically.
Sending us into peals of laughter
The other one would reinvent the rules of chess as he was learning to play. He would move the chessmen as was convenient for him and send us into peals of laughter.
There would be words, which they would mispronounce consistently, and it would be difficult for us to keep a straight face.
Now they sit with me, patiently (well, most of the time!) as and when I have issues with various gadgets, explaining myriad things to me. It’s particularly difficult when I get a new device. After all the explanations and demos, just when I feel I’ve mastered it, I get confused all over again and see my sons stifling giggles!
Small children have a penchant for asking all kinds of questions all the time and even the best of parents get exasperated but as parents get older, the children seem to be at the receiving end.
‘What does TTYL mean?’ ‘How can I attach a photo/video in messenger?’ ‘Why isn’t the cursor moving?
’How can I get this autocorrect off?’ asks a red-faced parent after sending a hilarious, embarrassing message and make the children ROFL! Same with sending the wrong message to the wrong group through Whatsapp and running to the children, ‘How do I delete?’
A senior colleague once told me ‘ Isn’t it amazing how life always comes a full circle in the blink of an eye? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was dropping off my daughter to her school and today she has dropped me off to my school’ I could feel the pride in her voice laced with a wistfulness, that words cannot describe.
Howling kid in the back seat
Somewhere between ‘Mama, Can you take me to the park?’ and ‘Son/daughter, can you take me to the doc’s?’ life comes a full circle.
It’s just a matter of time that the parent at the wheel with a howling kid in the back seats of vehicle change places; only the howling gets replaced by back seat driving instructions.
‘Not now, child. I have work to do,’ changes to by ‘Not now, papa/mama, I am busy’.
I feel the most difficult and scary time in parenting is when children fall ill. Sleep vanishes as we stay guard beside the child and time drags. We check the temperature a number of times and we sway between relief and panic.
I was down with flu a few days ago and took to bed. In the middle of the night, I opened my eyes, weary from high temperature, to the touch of a palm on my forehead. It was my son checking on me and déjà vu stuck again!
We never realise how fast the time speeds us by and before we know we have become like our parents and our children like us. Yes, it is a bit annoying and kind of funny but that’s life!
As a kid, whenever we visited grandma in our ‘hometown’, I used to pick up things that I thought my grandma would like. I beam with happiness when my kids do the same but now ‘hometown’ is ‘home country’ and there are more miles to be traversed but the sentiments remain the same!
As I am penning this late into night, I feel a tap on my shoulder and see my son standing behind me with a cup of black coffee. ’You might need it to keep awake and complete your work’.
I am reminded of the countless times I have done that for him when he was burning the midnight oil. Life has indeed come a full circle!
Annie Mathew is an educator and writer based in Dubai
