At sixty-five, we finally understood that our children no longer needed us. How does one come to terms with that and begin living for oneself?
I am sixty-five now, and for the first time in my life, I face a bitter question: have our children, for whom my husband and I sacrificed everything, cast us aside like worn-out relics? Our three childrenthose to whom we gave our youth, our strength, every last pennytook all they desired and left without a backward glance. My son does not answer when I call, and I catch myself wondering: will none of them offer us so much as a glass of water when we are too frail to care for ourselves? The thought pierces my heart like a blade, leaving only a hollow ache.
I married at twenty-five in a quiet market town outside Manchester. My husband, Edward, had been my schoolmate, a stubborn romantic who spent years vying for my attention. He even enrolled at the same university just to remain close. A year after our modest wedding, I fell pregnant. Our first daughter was born. Edward left his studies to work, and I took leave from mine. Those were hard yearshe toiled from dawn till dusk at the brickworks, while I learned to be a mother, struggling to keep up with my exams. Two years later, I found myself expecting again. I had to switch to correspondence courses, and Edward took on extra shifts to keep food on the table.
Somehow, we endured, raising our two eldestour daughter Margaret and our son Thomas. When Margaret started school, I finally found work in my field. Life began to settle: Edward secured a steady job with fair wages, and we made our little house a home. Yet just as we breathed easier, I discovered I was carrying our third. It was another blow. Edward laboured harder than ever to keep us afloat, and I stayed home with our youngest, Eleanor. How we managed, I still do not know, but step by step, we steadied ourselves. When Eleanor started school, I felt the weight lift at lastas though a great burden had rolled from my shoulders.
But trials were not yet done. Margaret, scarcely enrolled at university, announced her engagement. We did not dissuade herwe, too, had married young. The wedding, the help with her first flatit drained our last savings. Then Thomas wanted a place of his own. How could we refuse? We took a loan, bought him a modest house. Thankfully, he found work at a reputable firm soon after, and we sighed in relief. But Eleanor, in her final year of school, stunned us with dreams of studying abroad. It was another heavy blow to our purse, yet we scraped the money together and sent her across the sea. She flew away, and we remained alone in the silence of our empty home.
As the years passed, the children visited less and less. Margaret, though she lived nearby, came by only twice a year, waving off invitations with vague excuses. Thomas sold his house, bought another in London, and visited even more rarelyonce a year, if we were fortunate. Eleanor, after finishing her studies, stayed abroad to build her life there. We gave them everythingour time, our health, our dreamsand in return, we became nothing to them. We do not ask for money or aidheaven forbid. We only wish for a scrap of warmth: a call, a visit, a kind word. Yet even that is denied. The phone stays silent, the door unopened, and in my chest grows a cold, creeping loneliness.
Now I sit by the window, watching the autumn rain, and wonder: is this all there is? Have we, who gave our children every breath, been condemned to oblivion? Perhaps it is time to stop waiting for them to remember us and turn instead to ourselves. At sixty-five, Edward and I stand at a crossroads. Ahead lies the unknown, but somewhere beyond the horizon flickers a hopeof happiness, our own, not someone elses. We have spent our lives putting ourselves last, but have we not earned a little joy for ourselves? I want to believe we have. I want to learn to live anew, for the two of us, while our hearts still beat. How does one accept this emptiness and find light within it? What do you think?
