What would you do for someone you love? Would you jump off a bridge? Would you kill someone? Would you die for someone? Hard to answer. Those questions have been pondered for years by the greatest thinkers and philosophers from around the world.
So let’s take things down a notch and ask yourself if someone you loved and cared about needed your help would you offer them a hand? I will just get to the point: My son and his wife are expecting a baby in June. It’s a thrilling, wonderful experience for these first-time parents. The joy, the expectation, the dreams they must have for each other and their little one.
Wouldn’t you as a parent want to help your children? I certainly would want to do whatever I could to help. If it meant having your son and family move in with you for a time, would you do it? Would you sacrifice your quiet existence, your routine of day-to-day living to give your children an opportunity to purchase a home of their own?
I didn’t hesitate to offer our home as a place to stay. It seemed to me the only way for them to save enough money to make a down payment. It seemed like a very good solution to a problem I am sure many of our young people have today: how to save enough money to buy their own home. How do you pay your rent, make your car payments and live and still be able to “sock” enough money away to use as a down payment. It would take a lifetime to save enough money to buy a house at the prices they are today.
I had resistance from my husband about this arrangement. I had resistance from my daughter. And it’s not that I don’t understand how our lives will be turned upside down when my son and family move into our home. I totally get that it will be difficult and exhausting and tiresome, yet the rewards for my son and his family will be priceless. They will be able to afford a home of their own.
As I think about this dilemma I am reminded about how my parents helped my husband and I get established. How their financial assistance gave us the opportunity to raise our children in a beautiful home and how that gave our children more opportunity in the world.
My parents were married during the Second World War and while my father was away at sea my mother and her children lived with my great aunts. For my father and his new bride I am sure this was not the most ideal situation. But they “made do,“ as my mother used to say. I am sure my mother took comfort in the fact that she had company while my father was away and they didn’t have to worry about making mortgage payments on a sergeant’s salary. In time my parents saved enough money and were ready to buy their first home, on Sheppard Ave. in Toronto. In that small war home they raised five children until in 1958, the year I was born, my father was transferred to Montreal by his company, Allied Chemical. Getting a good price for their home in Toronto, they were able to purchase a much larger home in Montreal that would be more comfortable and would accommodate their growing family.
My parents’ words echo in my brain: “You have to offer it up; making sacrifices is what makes us stronger.” Truer words have never been spoke,n I am sure. Life is about sacrifices and choices. We can choose to help or we can just ignore the problem. I have always been one to make the sacrifice. At what cost? One never knows until the sacrifice has been made. This living arrangement could make our home a battleground for all of us. But we have to take the risk in order to attain the goal. Like everything in life there are no guarantees.
I do know that I would do whatever I could to help out my children! If we end up hating each other so be it; at least my son and his family will have a home to live in.
But let’s not just dwell on the negative. Let’s look at what the positive will be: We will see a lot of our new grandson, and there can’t be anything wrong with that. It will be closer for family to visit as well, rather than traveling downtown. It will be summer when the baby is born and so those “lazy days” will help alleviate the feeling that there are too many people living under one roof. And of course there will be monthly meetings where we can all clear the air. Why not? My staff at work asked me to hold monthly meetings and so I do and it’s worked out very well. Our next meeting at work we are having a pot luck brunch. So I think meetings will be what might save us from strangling each other. That and weekend getaways for my husband and I; my daughter is on her own – she ‘s an adult!
All kidding aside, I am awaiting the birth of my first grandchild, something I thought I would never have a chance to witness. Or if I did I figured I would be about eighty when it happened. The thought of five adults and two dogs and a baby under one roof seems like nothing compared to the reality that I am going to be a grandma! That’s really what’s important here: I am going to be a grandma. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around that one.
So would you jump off a bridge? Would you die for someone you loved? Would you spend a few months together under one roof? Can it really be as bad as everyone is telling me it will be? I don’t think so because as one friend said to me, “I feel love.” To me that is what all of us adults need to model to this wee new baby that will be joining us soon. Joining our families, my son’s and his wife’s, we must pray that this baby sees just how beautiful the world is and how much love is in it even if its in a confined space! We will all put aside our petty problems, I am sure, and welcome this baby home!
Image Credit
Photo by Martha Farley. All rights reserved.
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