In and out of shadows ~ Malinda Words

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is the 232nd article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

When do children cease to be children, I’ve often asked myself. Ask children of different ages and they would probably come up with a range of answers.

’18’ was an answer I considered when I was around 15. However, three years was somehow too long to wait. Once, when I was still just 15 I had a particularly distasteful argument with my mother. I had to stay after school for Under 17 cricket practices, although I wasn’t much of a cricketer. Anyone could try out and I was giving it a shot.

I was upset, I remember. So I came up with a justification for stepping out of adult shadows, especially those of my parents. Technically, one could even be 13 or 14 and still try out for the Under 17 team. I was 15. Legit. It was Under 17, so I told myself, you have the same status as the oldest boy attending practices. That still barely made me 17, but hey, what’s a year’s difference! I decided I will not go home immediately afterwards.

Important decision made, but no follow up. I didn’t know what to do next. I probably knew trouble awaited me, for I decided I would go to watch the Chess Nationals underway at that time at the YMBA, Borella. I went there because my big brother was playing. There was, I probably knew, some safety in that. His shadow was a nice place to be during all my school years.

There are pluses and minuses, but I didn’t mind the latter. Not all younger siblings are like that, I know. There’s comfort in shade but the dependency isn’t always nice. One wants to be called by one’s name. After a while one doesn’t want to be someone’s brother or sister, someone’s son or daughter.

People can decide when they are no longer children and affirm it without trying out tricks like I did. When they start earning, when they are able to afford to live on their own even in a rented room or house, they can think ‘out of their shadow, finally.’ Parents’ shadow, that is.

Parents think differently. They want their children to grow up into strong, independent, capable adults. They remain parents and their children will remain children. Shadows are not mentioned, but such there are.

There comes a time, though, when roles are reversed. Age and infirmity make parents dependent on the love, kindness and generosity of their children. It is not that they diminish and their children grow so that parents are somehow dwarfed by circumstance and forced under a child’s shadow. Just as the adolescent asserts identity and seeks to step out of shadow, an elderly parent can at times fight tenaciously to retain agency simply because this alone secures meaning and relevance.

A father-daughter shadow-shot, if you will, made me wonder about roles and their reversals as well as objection and resistance at any given time.

No one resides in a single citizen state. There are always dependencies and reciprocities. There’s safety in the presence of those who may know and have greater capacity, but sometimes true comfort is not about relative strength. When I hold someone’s hand, that someone is holding my hand too.

A parent would know how meaningful life is when an infant clings on to a little finger. One feels the weight as well as the privilege of responsibility, and yet, it is something else as well; the comprehension that one is part of something precious beyond description.

Generational issues get in the way. The world moves. The young grow up in worlds their parents are unfamiliar with. The eternal verities don’t change, however, and it sometimes takes time to understand that for all the apparent differences, matters related to the human condition are best treated with equanimity.

Such things cannot be taught. Sometimes no one wants to listen because people believe they have answers. Sometimes, however, they wonder. And that’s when shadows come into play. You are shaded by something someone said ages ago, an observation or lesson that was noted or footnoted. And sometimes you realise, yes, the world has changed and those who have grown up with the relevant transformations are best equipped to help you navigate them. That’s when you see that your child’s shadow is big enough to take shelter under.

We move in and out of each other’s shadows. It’s a dance. A life-dance, really. In this instance, a father-daughter dance that shelters me from an unforgiving sun.

04 October 2023

In and out of shadows

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