There is an old saying: A family that eats together stays together. In the hectic world of the world we live in, where each member of the family has a vicariously different schedule, the family meal time has been sacrificed in many homes except for perhaps the weekend.
My friend Anita Pratap was in town recently. I asked her about her son Zubin who is a good-looking, intelligent lawyer practisising in Australia. She said he would never get married. A confirmed bachelor at 33,he is against the institution of marriage, though he has a girlfriend. In his old age, he plans to retain a Filipino nurse and loathes the idea of a wife and children as old-age insurance.
Many youngsters I meet of late are nebulous when it comes to marriage as they all knowingly say love is really lust, and that permanence is not all that it is cracked up to be. There is no guarantee that your wife -- or worse still, your children -- will have the sense of love and dedication to take care of one through the tribulations of old age. So why marry or have a family, they argue.
I believe in the institution of marriage and family as the bonds one builds are the very reason to exist. What is a life that one doesn't share with loved ones? A sunset shared with a loved one becomes the essense of memories, a fortune shared more meaningful, teaching the next generation your values, principles and the meaning of life is invaluable, the legacy one chooses to leave behind is one's children and through them, the lifeline of the time you spent on this Earth.
Recently, I have witnessed many young friends dying before their time, my immediate thought goes out to their families. When I became a widow in my 30s despite a watertight will drawn up by one of the best law firms in the world as we lived abroad, I was harassed in the courts of many countries fighting litigation that would have been impossible if it were not for the mirror wills my late husband and I made years earlier. I urge all those macho men out there who think they will live forever to go to their lawyers draw up a will, add a codicil as the years go by and put a clause that being of sound mind you want any beneficiary who challenges the will to be automatically removed as a benificiary. Finally, it must be registered and hopefully something in it goes to your favourite charity or cause. Giving back to society inculcates those values in Gen Next.
I truly believe love to be the most powerful emotion and my family to be my reason to live. We share everything including our meals and that probably is what weaves us together -- three generations -- nurturing, loving and giving of life itself to each other from here to eternity.
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