Topics discussed in families.
By Ramana Rajgopaul. Filed in Humor, Relationships |
A cousin of mine came to visit me a couple of days ago. He spent just a few hours with me, but they were intense for the range of topics that we covered.
There is only five years difference in age between us and we have always been quite close to each other due to various circumstances that kept throwing opportunities to be with each other at us throughout our life.
I was loath to see him leave as there was so much more to talk and reminisce about. I suppose that this is what happens when people close to you are physically far away from you and your meetings with them are all too infrequent.
Two topics that we discussed were interesting for their application to many people in similar circumstances.
My cousin is childless due to some medical reasons. He and his brother have lived in a joint family and his brother’s children were all the time around for him to be exposed to the joys of children growing up. Added to that, he has a sister living close by whose children also used to be around quite frequently and so the numbers were also quite substantial.
Now, all the children are grown up and some have children of their own. His brother is quite busy with his grand children whereas, with the joint family having split up recently, with each sibling moving into individual homes, this particular cousin is left with his wife in an independent home. He recently had a stroke and that has also had an effect on his psyche. My brother who is a neighbor for him also is quite busy with a grand child and I am not yet blessed with one.
This common absence of grandchildren as well as his childlessness has caused a lot of commentary within our family circles. This was the topic that took up quite a bit of our time to get both of us in a humorous mood to learn about all the comments made by various others and the theories that are going around about what will be mentioned in our wills! Both of us had a good laugh at such minor matters getting such major attention.
What a topic to discuss about! I suppose that all families go through such discussions when nothing else interesting takes place. Do you have access to such information if the bulk of your family lives far away from where you live? How do you react to such discussions?
Tuesday, August 5th 2008 at 22:34 |
Ramana,
Again, this is very interesting post in that it raises issues related to access to children and grand children. Indeed, if you compare people whose lives are closely knit as in the case of our loved cousin, with say someone of my ilk who spent his life away from his family, the comparison flounders as at least our cousin had most of his life in the company of his brother and his children not to mention his sisters. Hence his ready access (albeit fraught at times as most families who live at close quarters encounter from time to time) to nieces and nephews probably made up to a large extent of not having children of his own. Please do not misread this, no one would voluntarily wish such a fate, but in the event that this was to be ones lot, at least he was blessed with a loving family around him. I do not know what comments have been made about his lack of children etc, but my view of the cousin involved is that he is singularly a great companion and a relative who will always be held in ther greatest affection in my mind and hence on balance his life would probably have been a more enjoyable one than such as mine who has only had sporadic acces to nieces, nephews, brothers and sister and cousin. However, that is not a complaint, a mere statement of how it has been for my 42 years of living in the UK.
Monday, September 15th 2008 at 18:39 |
I don’t know how I would have reacted had I been childless but adoption certainly is an option.
Monday, September 15th 2008 at 20:50 |
I would not have bothered to react at all. If we keep worrying about what anyone else is thinking about us, we will never live our lives with all its ups and downs. I would have certainly considered adoption without again worrying about what others will have to think or say about it.