She is All that I Have

“She is seventeen years old and the only one whom I have left with me. All my relatives have already died, and she is all that I have,” answered an ancient looking lady to my remark that she has a very nice… dog. “She is like my family member, and I pray every day that she would not die and live longer, because then I would not have anyone left at all – I would be all alone. She is an old dog but she loves me very much,” she added sitting on a bench with her dog caressing her knee with its head. I later found out that this lady has only recently moved to my mother’s village, as probably rent and living arrangements in village are more affordable for her scanty income than living anywhere else.

I am visiting my mother in a tiny village of a small Eastern European country – Latvia. She has many health issues and just like numerous other elderly people in the village, whose children are away living abroad or in bigger cities, she also lives alone. She has good neighbours and good friends, Alhumdulillah, and a lovely garden of her own with fruit-trees, vegetables and berries, which she always proudly praises as organic and so healthy. She loves the village life and cannot imagine living anywhere else.

I feel very emotional observing how the elderly villagers go about their daily tasks, as I have grown up seeing them young and strong. I still see the twin-sisters grannies, who still go around only together and only dressed in identical clothes, just like I remember them from my childhood. My six-year-old daughter was so surprised to see how warmly all the old aunties we meet welcome us that one day she asked: “Mom, why are they so very happy to see us?” I don’t really have any other answer for her than saying: “This is the village life, where everybody knows everybody and people care for each other.” There are days when a stroll through the village may take triple the usual time, as I stop to have a talk with my primary class teacher, my next door neighbour, who has eyes issues nowadays, or the elderly gentleman, who is the beekeeper in the garden next to ours and has a very ill wife. They all want to hear how I am doing, and they all want to share about their children and their lives.

Living in joint family is not common here, so elderly parents do tend to end up quite lonely and often in old people’s homes, when they are not able to take care of themselves any more. It is a sad reality that makes me think of all the blessings the young generation is missing out on by not having their parents live with them and serving them in their old age. I do hear also of some horrible stories of the elderly villagers being mistreated by their grown-up children and deserted to care for themselves. The link between the generations is getting more and more severed – and something just doesn’t feel right about this at all…

Although western influences are steadily seeping into Pakistan as well with old people’s homes becoming common nowadays, family values are still strong and parents are still viewed as a blessing, not a burden. It may take a measure of sacrifice to live in joint family with your parents or in-laws, giving up your own certain freedoms to serve them, but at the time when parents will be no more, we will know for sure that it was all worth it to the last minute.