Aging

I was looking at some wedding snaps the other day, and I saw the youthfulness of the bride and the groom. But more than this pleasant sight, the picture of the fathers of the newly-weds made me sad.

These fathers, at the peak of their time, were pristine and in complete control of life but now they seemed to have shrunk and on the downward path. It is the ultimate truth of Life that Man ages and dies but, for some reason, when I saw many aging fathers in that wedding - a lot of whom I have been seeing since two decades - I felt an inexplicable pang. How elegant and how high these men would have been in their own weddings with joy profusely emanating but in such weddings, they seemed tired and old and worn out due to the rigors of Life with more relief written on their face of having finished another of their responsibilities than a hint of joy.

Ditto with many of my uncles. Since the time I have seen them, they have been energetic and dynamic and always dependable. But with passage of time - although it seems quite sudden - they seem to have grown so old that they need help from people like me and my cousins. When one is so used to being helped, it comes as a mild shock to actually being asked for help by the heretofore helper himself!

While it is good to see one's cousins grow up to become adults and get jobs abroad and/or become mothers, it is unsettling to see parents and uncles and aunts grow old and get white hair and become weak. Frankly I don't like this feeling.

:-(