Of the many books I have read about the meaning of life, one idea always stuck with me: that if we observe reality carefully, we will receive messages that life sends us when we need them most. I was walking my dog one morning when, as I passed an old man sitting at the trolley stop, he started talking to me. His was the beginning of a cascade of information that left me speechless. Almost without stopping, he confided to me that his parents were Irish but that he had been born in Brazil, where he now wanted to return. His father had died when he was young, and he had never heard from his mother again because she was a “bad woman,” he said; That is what made him emigrate one day to the United States. I was standing in front of this stranger without really knowing what to do, or how to say goodbye politely and without hurting his feelings. However, apparently the conversation was not over yet, and he continued talking because he still had to tell me the most important thing. It was while staring at me that he told me that, upon becoming a widow, his mother had forced him to be her daily support, depriving him of almost all freedom. That is how one day he decided to leave her and emigrate to a new country. Taking advantage of the fact that the man had stopped talking, and using a pleasant smile, I told him that I had to go to a medical appointment, and walked away. But as I walked towards my house, the man's words kept coming back to me. I could not help but wonder if I, having only one child and being alone at this stage of life, had made the same mistakes as the mother of that stranger. Without a doubt, I had asked myself the same question more than once, but I had never come up with a satisfactory answer. Now, however, the man’s message was clear as daylight: the time had come for me to finally accept that our children share our days only for a while. Then their task has to do with discovering the rest of the world.
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