Sid's my cousin's son. Growing up, he was a painfully shy child, never quite opening up to me as the rest of my nephews and nieces did. It wasn't until he was in high school that we began to exchange a few tete a tetes.
He's 17 now, a precocious fellow, and the leader of the pack amongst his cousins. It was last week, however, that he might have transformed from nephew to buddy.
Over dinner, I was catching up with his parents on recent goings-on.
"We've got permanent help for my mom-in-law", I ventured.
"In the past few months, she's undergone a knee replacement and cataract surgeries for both her eyes. She's been a fiercely independent woman, staying all by herself and managing things just fine. She'd go for her morning walks, do her vegetable shopping, cook her own meals, read her Bible, watch her television and go about her life quite cheerily".
"Not any more".
"Ever since she's had someone staying with her, she refuses to get out of her bed or chair unless she's helped out of it. As for even making her own chai, forget it..."
"Unsurprising", piped in Ashok, the dad.
"Something similar happened to my father. He was driving around merrily when he was 75, when my mother and I put our feet down and insisted that he get a driver. He pushed back, saying that he quite enjoyed driving, but eventually gave in. Now, barely 3 months into being driven around, he doesn't even reverse the car out of the garage".
"We shouldn't ever be taking away their confidence at that age, you know?", he ended.
Sid was sitting across me at the table. With that mischievous glint in his eye, he chimed,
"Life lessons for me, you know?
He's 17 now, a precocious fellow, and the leader of the pack amongst his cousins. It was last week, however, that he might have transformed from nephew to buddy.
Over dinner, I was catching up with his parents on recent goings-on.
"We've got permanent help for my mom-in-law", I ventured.
"In the past few months, she's undergone a knee replacement and cataract surgeries for both her eyes. She's been a fiercely independent woman, staying all by herself and managing things just fine. She'd go for her morning walks, do her vegetable shopping, cook her own meals, read her Bible, watch her television and go about her life quite cheerily".
"Not any more".
"Ever since she's had someone staying with her, she refuses to get out of her bed or chair unless she's helped out of it. As for even making her own chai, forget it..."
"Unsurprising", piped in Ashok, the dad.
"Something similar happened to my father. He was driving around merrily when he was 75, when my mother and I put our feet down and insisted that he get a driver. He pushed back, saying that he quite enjoyed driving, but eventually gave in. Now, barely 3 months into being driven around, he doesn't even reverse the car out of the garage".
"We shouldn't ever be taking away their confidence at that age, you know?", he ended.
Sid was sitting across me at the table. With that mischievous glint in his eye, he chimed,
"Life lessons for me, you know?
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