The Author's Corner: Dust

The cool morning breeze blows to the east. It is a summers morning and you are out for a walk. The walk maybe in a city park or around the small town where you live. The sun is rising on this day as it is the beginning of something new for you. This is the first Monday of your retirement. You have worked your time and even though you are in your forties, your retirement comes because you have moved home to take care of your parents.

For now, your parents do not need the help right yet. As you are single with no children nor any major debts, you made the choice to move home. With the time to start on one of your hobbies, you have found a way to make some money from it.

In so many ways the world has changed. In the western world, we send our parents to nursing homes when the time comes when they need the help. For the few families that stick together there is always one child that moves home to take care of their parents. It is like the kids of those parents realize that the help that they got growing up is to be shown at the end of their parent’s lives.

For me, I chose the path less taken where I ended my career as a chef and to move home to help my parents. It was when COVID shut down the restaurant I was working at in 2020 when I made that decision at the age of 41.

From the time when I move out of the basement of mom and dad’s house to go and get my papers in cooking I knew then that I would be the one moving home. This was the reason why I stayed single and achieved what I could before I looked at moving back. After achieving my goals I returned to Western Canada where my parents live after being diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2005.

After moving home, I knew that I would be just working to pay bills until it was time to move home. Now it is 2023 and I am still reaching up for other goals now that my career in the kitchen has come to an end. Now my focus is on helping my parents and working on my new career as an author.

In time, those people who have and are putting their career before their family always wish they had spent more time with their parents. That is when they realize that by chasing money they have forgot about the people who mean the most to them. Your job is easily replaced, however family and friends, who are family, can not be replaced. Take the time now and call those people that mean something to you in your life.

When we die we return to life as nothing more than dust. What we have here is today. No one has come back from the dead to say any different. If you are one of the few who have retired from your careers to take care of your parents, know that there is no greater thing that you can do. There is no amount of money that is equal to the love of your family and friends. Do not take it for granted.

Stay safe.