My husband and I sacrificed everything so our children could have better lives. Now, in our old age, we are left utterly alone.
All our lives, we lived for our children—not for ourselves, nor for any great success, but for them, our beloved three. We cherished them, nurtured them, gave up everything we had. Who could have guessed that at the end of this journey, when our health has faded and our strength is spent, we would be met not with gratitude and care, but with silence and emptiness?
James and I had known each other since childhood—growing up on the same street, attending the same school in Manchester. When I turned eighteen, we married in a quiet ceremony, barely able to afford it. Just months later, I discovered I was pregnant. James left his studies without hesitation, taking on two jobs just to put food on the table.
We were poor. For days, we lived on nothing but boiled potatoes, yet we never complained. We knew why we endured it—so our children would never know the hunger or hardship we had faced. When things settled slightly, I fell pregnant again. It was daunting, but neither of us hesitated—this was our child, after all.
We had no help. My mother had passed years before, and James’s parents lived in Cornwall, too preoccupied with their own lives. My days were spent between the kitchen and the nursery, while James worked from dawn till dusk, returning home with exhaustion in his eyes and cold-chapped hands.
By thirty, I had our third. Was it hard? Of course. But we’d never expected ease—life had never coddled us. Step by step, through debts and ceaseless work, we managed to buy flats for two of them in London. The sleepless nights it cost us, only heaven knows. Our youngest, Elizabeth, dreamed of becoming a doctor, so we took on another loan and sent her abroad. “We’ll manage,” we told ourselves.
The years rushed by as though sped up. The children grew, scattered, built lives of their own. And then old age came for us—not gently, but abruptly, with James’s failing health. I cared for him alone. No calls, no visits.
When I rang our eldest, Margaret, begging her to come, she snapped, “I have my own children, my own responsibilities. I can’t just drop everything.” Yet friends later told me they’d seen her laughing in a café with friends.
Our son, Thomas, claimed work kept him away—yet the same day, he posted holiday snaps from Brighton. And Elizabeth, the one we’d sacrificed nearly everything for—who now carried a prestigious degree—sent a cold message about exams keeping her abroad.
I spent nights by James’s bed, spoon-feeding him broth, checking his fever, holding his hand when the pain came. I didn’t expect miracles—only that he’d know someone still needed him. Because I did.
And in those quiet hours, I understood: we were completely alone. No comfort, no kindness, not even a flicker of concern. We had given everything—gone hungry so they would eat, worn rags so they could dress well, never rested so they might see the sea. Now, we were nothing but a burden.
The cruelest part wasn’t even the betrayal. It was realising we had been erased. Needed only while we were useful—now just obstacles in their bright, busy lives.
Sometimes, I hear neighbours laughing as their grandchildren visit. Sometimes, I see an old friend arm-in-arm with her daughter in the park. I curl inward. Such things aren’t for us. To our children, we are merely the past.
I’ve stopped calling. Stopped reminding them we exist. James and I live quietly now in our small, tidy flat. I make his porridge, play old films, sit beside him as he drifts to sleep. Each night, I pray for only one thing—that his suffering ends gently. He’s endured enough.
As for the children… well, I suppose they’re happy. Isn’t that what we worked for? Then why does the thought leave such bitterness? Why does the silence ache so?
We starved ourselves for their futures. Now, we swallow our tears in the quiet.
