Sanjai Gandhi: Parent's Worry

    Is there a magic cut off period
    when offspring become accountable
    for their own actions?
    Is there a wonderful moment
    when parents can become
    detached spectators in the lives
    of their children and shrug,
    "It's their life," and feel nothing?

    When I was in my twenties, I stood in a hospital corridor waiting for
    doctors to put a few stitches in my son's head. I asked, "When do you stop
    worrying?" The nurse said,
    "When they get out of the accident stage."
    My mother just smiled faintly
    and said nothing.

    When I was in my thirties, I sat on a little
    chair in a classroom and heard how one of my children talked incessantly,
    disrupted the class, and was headed
    for a career making license plates.
    As if to read my mind , a teacher said,
    "Don't worry, they all go through this stage and then you can sit back,

relax and enjoy them."

    My mother just smiled faintly
    and said nothing.

   When I was in my forties, I spent a lifetime
    waiting for the phone to ring,
    the cars to come home, the front door
   to open. A friend said,
    "They're trying to find themselves.
    Don't worry, in a few years, you can stop worrying. They'll be adults."
    My mother just smiled faintly
     and said nothing.

    By the time I was 50, I was sick & tired of being vulnerable. I was still

worrying over my children, but there was
     a new wrinkle. There was nothing
    I could do about it.
    My mother just smiled faintly
    and said nothing.
    I continued to anguish
    over their failures, be tormented
    by their frustrations
    and absorbed in their disappointments.

    My friends said that when my kids got married I could stop worrying and lead
    my own life. I wanted to believe that, but I was
    haunted by my mother's warm smile and her

    occasional, "You look pale. Are you all right?
    Call me the minute you get home. Are
    you depressed about something?"

    Can it be that parents are sentenced
    to a lifetime of worry?
    Is concern for one another
    handed down like a torch to blaze the trail
    of human frailties and the fears
    of the unknown?
    Is concern a curse or is it a virtue
    that elevates us to the highest form of life?

    One of my children became quite irritable
    recently, saying to me, "Where were you? I've been
calling for 3 days, and
    no one answered. I was worried."
    I smiled a warm smile.
    The torch has been passed.

    PASS IT ON TO OTHER WONDERFUL PARENTS
    (and also to your children.
    That's the fun part.)