"Second Childhood"

As has been the tradition in my household for the past eight years, my mother is spending Christmas with us. It is always a beautiful experience for all generations – my mother, me and my children. The children bond with their grandma, learning more and more about her – her childhood, her upbringing, her views on parenting and on life in general. They also learn about me, as she reveals her secrets about what I was really like as a child and teenager! For of course, I have only told them the positives, what a perfect teenager I was, with nary a word about my rebelliousness and trying behaviour!

Grandma loves these little respites from her own home, where she can relax, be pampered and get to know her grandchildren in their own home environment. She loves the attention of the dogs, and to the tranquility of petting and stroking them, as they respond with a nuzzle of her hand and a gentle wagging of their tails. She enjoys my verdant garden, the lushness of my hanging ferns and the whisper of the birds and wind chimes blowing gently in the cool Jamaican Christmas breeze.

Within this big picture of generational love are moments that are timeless. One of these stands out this year as it continues to reverberate with me days after it actually happened.

As I was turning into bed one night, I peeped into Mummy’s room and noted that she had dozed off to sleep, but clearly not yet ready for bed. She had her night coat laid over her feet, which suggested that she was feeling a bit cold. And it was a chilly night. I asked my daughter Victoria for one of her comforters and she advised me: “Take this for Grandma – it’s the softest one”. I gently laid the comforter over my mother, tucking it under her neck and over her feet, cocooning her so that only her head was exposed. Half-asleep, she whispered “Thank you” as I turned out the light.

As I tucked her in, I felt such love for her. She felt it too, for she remarked the next day how good she had felt when I tucked her in. It was a moment of unspoken love, one of those moments when words are not needed, but when both know and feel deep love for each other. Mummy also recalled the irony – of how many times she had tucked me in as a child, and now I, the child, was doing the tucking in of the mother.

And so “once a man, twice a child” took on a different meaning for me. This phrase is often said disparagingly as the “second childhood” is viewed as being one of decline, dependence and despair. Yet in that moment of tucking in my mother “once a woman, twice a child” signified a second childhood of love, comfort and nurturing. How lovely that the second childhood could be as happy and joyous as the first – and perhaps even more so as we learn the lessons of adulthood, shed the baggage and resolve our issues. A second childhood when we have come to know the truth of who we are, when we have done the work we are meant to do in this incarnation, is a wondrous, magnificent thing!

For those of us lucky enough to have our parents and elderly relatives around on this plane, this second childhood is an opportunity to show them the love that they showed us, and that we show our children. It is an opportunity to accept the reversal of roles and to know that in the cycle of life – child/parent/child – we too shall become children again.

We have a choice in how we view this second childhood. We may view it as one of decline and despair, or as an opportunity to open up to being nurtured and cared for. For those who have had troubled, hurtful and hurting relationships with their parents, second childhood is an opportunity for us to forgive and to show them the love that we wished they had shown us. It is never too late to love.

As I tucked in my mother, I recognised that one day I will be the one to be tucked in. Indeed, magic happened last night. All during the day I had been having the sniffles. I turned into bed early. Victoria came into the room to kiss me goodnight and asked if I was OK. On hearing of my still-stuffy nose, she asked me if I wanted her to rub Vicks on my feet. And so there I was, being the child, mothered by my daughter! Another moment of unspoken love.