Monday was Nelson Mandela’s 93rd birthday. Outside his house, a brass band serenaded him for several hours. South African President Jacob Zuma stopped by to offer birthday wishes. In schools across the country, millions of children sang him Happy Birthday. But there was no big public bash. According to news reports, Mandela spent the day at his home in Qunu, surrounded by family, including his ex-wife Winnie Mandela, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
On Sunday, July 17, my father celebrated his 86th birthday. He listened to the CBC’s Radio One newscast, every hour on the hour, as he does every day. The neighbours from across the street dropped in to give him a card. Two-year old granddaughter Zara warbled Happy Birthday. Together with her father, my mother and me, Papa enjoyed a backyard barbecue at his home in small-town Ontario, and a birthday cake on which we helped him blow out the candles.
What do these two men have in common, apart from advanced age? Nothing, apart from one all-important thing: the love and presence of family in their lives.
In a recent interview with Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, Mandela’s 26-year-old grandson Kweku said: “For a long time when he was president, he was very inaccessible but now if you want to go and see him, you just go … In Qunu, we talk, play ping pong, rent movies and play sports. We always have dinners together and he usually gives a speech or tells a little story.”
The photo that accompanied the article said even more. It showed a beaming Mandela, surrounded by his smiling daughters and granddaughters. Light years away are his 27 years in prison and his struggles to forge a new South Africa. At the end of the day, and the twilight of his days, it is clear what really matters.
Sadly, these family scenes will become fewer and fewer as our population not only ages, but changes. More and more, people are choosing not to have children, embracing the so-called “childfree” lifestyle. Last week, a restaurant near Pittsburgh caused a commotion — but received many plaudits — when it announced that it would no longer welcome children under six. This October, Irish airline Ryanair will begin offering child-free flights, after a survey found people would pay a premium to travel in adult company only.
Hey, I’m all for freedom of choice, and as a new parent, I can fully appreciate the perks of not having children. Sleeping in and going out are pleasures of the past.
But a word to the childless: These are also snapshots of the future. There will come a time when Zara makes her own way in the world and I can once again read the Saturday paper in bed.
And then, decades later I hope, will come a time when I have trouble leaving my bed at all. Aging is not pretty or dignified; one day I – like my toddler today – may not be able to hold a spoon or stay continent. And who will be there when that happens?
Of course, you can always pay someone to care for you, and the childless will crow that they will be able to do so, having not spent their savings on their kids’ college education. But nursing home attendants, attentive though they may be, are not family. They are not bound by ties of blood, memory, and love.
While having children does not guarantee their presence in your old age, not having them makes their absence a certainty. My father’s struggle with dementia, still in its early stages, makes me realize how precious family ties are. He delights in the antics of his granddaughter. He revisits his own youth and retells stories of when he was a child. Like Mandela, his eyes light up, sparked by the presence of new life, and love.
Who will blow out the candles on my cake when I no longer can? Hopefully, my daughter, or her children. I can’t think of a better way to spend a birthday — now, or then.
National Post
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