Her children began fighting for the property she left behind within days of her death, they could not wait until they buried their mother
Last weekend, I spent some time with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while, and as we swapped stories, she told me that her mother, who is in her mid-60s, had recently bought a car, her first car, the only car she has ever owned.
A few months before the purchase, her mother had attended the burial of a friend of hers, a very well-off woman who had lived her life as if she were a pauper. She had been a skilled businesswoman, and in the course of her life, had amassed a variety of properties, including rental flats and several parcels of land. But from her pinched face, constant mournful look and manner as well as her miserly ways, you’d never have deduced that she was loaded, so to speak.
Her children began fighting for the property she left behind within days of her death, they could not bring themselves to, at least, wait until they buried their mother. My friend tells me that her mother was shaken and horrified at the thought that she could have been the one lying in that coffin, with her children bickering over her hard-earned money, money that she hadn’t enjoyed, instead of mourning her. She returned home a changed woman after that burial, a woman that was determined to make most of the days she had left on earth.
For a long time, she had longed for a car, but being a single parent with two children to raise and educate, she could not have afforded to buy one. But this changed once her children completed school, got jobs and became independent. Finally, she could afford the small luxuries she had denied herself so that she could make ends meet.
But it never occurred to her that she could still get herself a car. She figured that it was too late in life to fulfil this longing. Until her friend died, leaving behind all the wealth she had painstakingly amassed over the years without having paused to appreciate any of it.
This friend told me that a couple of weeks later after that burial, her mother sold off one of the parcels of land she had intended to bequeath her and her brother and bought herself a car.
She is also learning how to swim, determined to make up for the numerous lost opportunities to enjoy water that she has missed over the years while watching others swim from the sidelines because she didn’t know how.
This anecdote brought to the fore why it is important to grab every opportunity at happiness that life presents us with.
Not all of us may have a piece of land that we can afford to sell to buy a car, a car in this case being a metaphor, and for those who may have it, if they sold it, it would be to fulfil pressing needs such as paying school fees for their children or paying a medical bill.
Whatever station you are in, in this journey called life, aim to grab and enjoy the moments of happiness that come your way, no matter how brief.
