Parents

I have been struggling with this post for days now. I am unable to understand how to begin, not sounding too cliched yet making my point. This thing that I want to say is so very close to my heart that I don't know if I know the words to do a full justice to it. Needless to say, it revolves around something very uncool, parents.

Parents, love them, hate them but you can't ignore them. People don't get along well with their parents, specially during the teenage. When parents are the essential enemy. Sure they are irrational sometimes, like my mother and her fears for my safety. Her assumption that every innocent guy I pass during the day is out to abduct me. Sometimes it irritates me, but then I realise she is only being my mom. Other parents have other irritating habits, and we tend to hate them for that. In fact, not fours years ago, I couldn't wait to leave the house for good.

Do this, do that, talk like this, don't laugh like that, it was getting on my nerves. I thought any place in the world had to be better than this. So, I took the first opportunity out, and boy! there was a tectonic shift in my perspective of things. Without my safety net, my parents, I was scared of everything. And they knew I was scared, so they stood by me and helped me. I had hated them, and they knew it, yet they helped me. They helped me stand on my own two feet and face the world. 

Recently, a friend's father fell majorly ill, while he is on the road to complete recovery and every time the news is steadily better, I saw very closely, the shock, the fear and most importantly the impact of such a life or death event of a parent. It is nothing you can ever think of. Even the thought of losing a parent is earth-shattering. Even if you are not on the best terms with them, they will always continue to remain the most prominent presence in your life.

As our parents get older, they can't always keep up with the world. They are not what they used to be twenty years ago. And sometimes we think, they are so stupid, why can't they do this, it is so simple. But they patiently taught us to ride a bike and a car, when they thought it was so simple.

They know what's happening to them, but they won't admit it, because they know we are not ready for it. We are not ready for our parents to grow old. We are not ready to see them incapacitated and frail. Because that would mean the loss of that protective shield, the safety net. We are not ready to let go of the idea that our parents are invincible. But they are not. And love them or hate them, it's time for us to protect them.