The other day my friend and all her siblings had to, as a matter of emergency, dash home since there was war at home. Her parents are retired and live together in the village with a shamba boy and house assistant to ease the burden of work.
The battle winds were raging voraciously. Her mum was very angry that as they – mother and father – walked to some function in the village a few days before, the father kept a few steps ahead of her. She was massively offended! How could he do something like that! Did he dare think that she is not good enough to be seen with? Or exactly what message was he trying to give to the village! My friend and her siblings left their busy schedules, their children, their spouses, their own relationships, their unmet work objectives despite that it was midyear and appraisal period, they dashed home. It was an ordeal like many they had witnessed before.
It got messy, their mother remembered and retold the story (for the thousandth time) that when she was 8 months pregnant with the first-born brother in 1970, their father refused to help her milk the cows and she had to scooch in the milking shed with her overextended belly to milk three cows, “three!” she emphasized as she waved three fingers in the air. “Every morning and evening and he did not raise a finger to help!” Later on when her labor pains started, she had to dash and fetch water from the river first because she knew she would not find any water after she came back home from hospital. In addition, their father did not play any role as the boys got circumcised, he sat back and let her do all the work. “Which man does that!” she asked bitterly as she retold the story of each of the son’s circumcision stories in detail, chronologically from minute to minute. The father, on the other hand, was not to be outdone, he recalled that, the mother had joined the maendeleo ya wanawake group in 1995 and gone ahead to become the chairlady of the local chapter becoming hardheaded, domineering, and the reason that Mwangi’s (their neighbor) wife, ran away in the year 2001. Mwangi then remarried after a few years, however the new wife is from Nyeri; fierce and violent and beats him to pulp. It is currently being suspected that Mwangi is responsible for impregnating that girl from the opposite ridge, the one who does not seem to be 100% in the head. So, no one is sure what will happen to Mwangi when the wife learns of the pregnancy. “All that is your mother’s fault!” he concluded. At that point, the mother remembered that his mother, her mother-in-law, had never liked her, she was a jealous woman and prone to throwing curses. It was a good thing that by the time she died, she was incapable of talking, therefore did not curse anyone. She had taken all the money that was contributed during their wedding (in 1969) and did not give them even a coin? “What a thief, he is just like his mother!” she concluded.
Might Mwangi’s supposed responsibility for the pregnancy be the reason, my friend’s father had been walking a few steps ahead of the mother? No one got to the bottom of the issue. The chronology of atrocities committed to each other, by each other plus the generous contribution by their respective relatives over their decades’ long marriage kept flowing until the time was over and the siblings needed to get back to their families. They left…… cross eyed! They had no solution for the issues. How do you resolve unfairness that happened in 1970s before you were born and has carried on for 5 decades? Is a simple, sorry, enough? Where is that sorry coming from because each one of the culprits has given to the other as good as they got over the years? To resolve these situations, you need a full-time truth and reconciliation committee!
When you retire, whom will you retire with?
We have seen what is happening to our parents and grandparents. The last batch of the baby boomers’ generation (born between 1946 to 1964) aged between 60 and 78 years are about to retire this year given that 60 is the usual retirement age in Kenya. Though we have fully experienced retirement of the silent generation (1925 to 1945), they were fewer compared to the baby boomer numbers hence most of us generations X, Y, Z have some experience with one or two baby boomers in our lives whether as parents or grandparents.
Many of our parents and grandparents’ generation who were in formal employment are hounded by bizarre levels of bitterness. There is so much hate among the couples. Even where one spouse is dead, you find that the other spouse is still bitter! All that drama is played out for the children to preside over. It is exhausting, it tears one apart as you wonder which one of your parents to side with.
Stories of toxic parents are rampant everywhere. There is that former primary school teacher who after retirement, built a separate kitchen for himself. His wife, the current chairperson of the village welfare group and him do not usually see eye to eye. When the children visit, they carry two gift packages, one for the father and one for the mother. There is that former school mate who moved to Canada, then invited her mum to visit and since her mum went there 5 years ago, she has never come back. Their Dad, a former head teacher is now seen loitering in the village looking like a lion that has been kicked out from its pride, old and desperate. Then there is that stressed neighbor in the estate who lives with her mother, two children and husband in their two bedroomed apartment because the mother was kicked out of their home after the husband retired and came back home with his town wife. Stories of how the baby boomer generation is handling their retirement are numerous and each one more depressing than the previous one.
Due to the unhealthy relationships over a lifetime, the occurrence of diseases has increased, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer and arthritis have been on an upward trend over a long time. Now there is the rising cases of dementia!
So, the question we need to ask ourselves today is…Whom am I going to retire with? Have we learnt anything from listening to our parents as they continue dramatizing their tragic lives and expecting us to resolve historical injustices? Am I building my perfect retirement partner out of my current partner? A friend, a confidant, a companion whom I can spend my retirement years with. Will I be having fun, travelling the world or in the village with a happy companion? Or will I spend my retirement years hatching a murder plan because I built a formidable enemy who can do anything, say anything to ruin me and everything I hold dear?
I am not a relationship expert but I know this much; relationships, similar to money and health are built a day at a time. Just the same way, you are not waiting to get a lump sum windfall that you will keep aside for your retirement, just like you cannot work out in the gym for a whole day and expect results by evening so are relationships. Every day, as you go about your work or business, enjoying with your friends and colleagues remember to invest in your retirement partner.
Manage your relationship the way you manage your money. It is the small things that matter, be there for them, be kind to them, be generous with your love, care and concern. Jesus put it simply “love your neighbor as you love yourself” By doing that, you treat them as you would like to be treated.
The alternative means that you have taken him or her for granted, you have flaunted your extra marital relationships in her/his face. Congratulations, you have been building a Goliath! A monster of unknown proportions and a revenge appetite to go with it. You can be sure there will be no bow and string this time around. Such things do not show up when you need them and anyway you aren’t as good a marksman as David was. You wait now!
You can decide to become creative at retirement as many of our men are known to do… decide to get yourself a new partner and dump the one you have terrorized all for 5 decades. Just remember that there are no angels out there waiting for you. That market, my friend, “ni soko ya jioni” and everything is “mbao, mbao” for a very good reason!
Start today to shape your perfect retirement partner. It will not matter how much money you have saved for retirement if you have a bitter partner with you, it will be a slow painful death.
