30/04/2026
No one ever prepares you for the moment you realize your parents are getting old.
We spend most of our lives seeing them as superheroesâunshakeable pillars of strength, capable of weathering any storm. Then one day, almost without us noticing, the shift happens.
That strong, decisive father now gets lost in his own thoughts, muttering protests or speaking in circles. That tireless mother starts forgetting her words, getting easily agitated or irritated for no apparent reason. When did it start? At what point did they stop being the unbreakable foundation of our world?
Theyâve aged. Our parents have grown old. And no one gave us a roadmap for this.
Suddenly, they lose that commanding presence that once defined them. They become fragile, vulnerable, and develop quirks we don't quite understand. They are simply exhausted from a lifetime of looking out for everyone else, of always being the role models. Now, the torch has been passed to usâto care for them, to cherish them with a new kind of tenderness. They carry a thousand lifetimes inside them, and when their memory fails, they reinvent their stories just to keep them alive. They donât dream of big projects anymore; they find joy in the smallest thingsâlike the guilty pleasure of eating the one thing the doctor strictly forbade.
We watch them slow down, lose their way, and grow nostalgic. But they haven't become "useless." If anything, the "useless" ones are usâwhen we refuse to accept the natural cycle of life. Itâs painful to see those who were once our strength now needing ours. Their fragility unsettles us, their struggle with technology exasperates us, and hearing the same story for the thousandth time wears us thin.
We get irritated, but deep down... itâs just fear. Itâs the fear of losing them. The fear of losing ourselves. The realization that one day, we will be where they are now.
Itâs time to stop asking them for the impossible. Itâs our turn to offer them exactly what they gave us for so many years: patience, unconditional love, and understanding. If they were our heroes once, itâs time for us to step up and be theirs.
