WHO PLANTED THESE TREES?

 

“Someone is sitting in the shade today,

because someone planted a tree long time ago.”

Warren Buffet

 

I have used the above statement by Warren Buffet several times, before, in my blogs. The obvious reference, most of us tend to derive, is, that the Investment Genius is referring to money - wealth, savings and investments. May be, that’s correct. But, every time, I have used it in my blogs, my own reference point has kept changing.

Undoubtedly, money and wealth, when invested wisely with a foresight,  grow like giant trees and end up providing shade – besides fruits and manure – to generations to come. So, if we assume, that Mr. Warren Buffet was encouraging us to raise money-plants, our assumption wont’ be wrong… After all, money doesn’t grow on trees. But, it does grow like trees!

The shade is the comfort each generation has been provided with by the generations before. I have seen by father’s  father… He almost lived like a tribal man… I am neither using that phrase in a derogatory manner nor to dramatize it. My grandfather did live such a rustic life! And, with whatever wisdom and means he possessed, he saw to it that his nine children – including my dad, lived a life better than his own. So, my dad became a mechanic… Didn’t have a decent education… With his huge weakness for drinking and smoking, he died early. But, not before making his five children live a life better than his own. And, here we are… I am. I have only one son. I do believe the shade my wife and I have provided to our only son is much better than the one we had found from our parents… And, that’s how it will be…

 

Interestingly, I am able to appreciate this ‘shade thing’ only when the people who had planted the trees are no more. I do not remember thinking of my dad, the way I do now, when he was around me with all his human flaws… All that I saw was his flaws!

And, that should be enough to make me say, ‘It’s okay… It’s okay’ if my own son sees only my human flaws… and not able to appreciate or value the shade of the tree I had planted for him… I am not complaining… I know that’s how the phenomenon called ‘shade of the tree’ is!

“In life, some lessons we learn only when we see the empty chairs,” a friend of mine said, completely choked with emotions. Like him, we all do, remembering the ones who planted shade-giving trees for us.

Another friend shared with me, yesterday, what his own young son and daughter keep telling him cold-bloodedly: “Don’t ask us to keep quiet; you learn to speak up!”

This father is a thorough gentleman, who is at the fag-end of his professional career. He is very, very gentle and soft-spoken, extremely kind-hearted. Today, his two young ones think, that he hasn’t achieved much in life… been taken for a ride by people around him. So, while advising his young ones to stop yelling in the middle of the nights, this father gets it back: “Don’t tell us to keep quiet; you learn to speak up!”

Extreme case? Or, extreme denial?

Most of us go about our lives like Ostriches, burying our heads in the sand!

Let’s not wait only to see the empty chairs… They did plant trees to give us shade!

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s: pixabay

 

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