An 80 year old man was sitting on his porch with his 45 year
old very educated son. Suddenly a crow appeared on their window and the father
asked his son: “What is that?”. The son answered: “A crow”.
Later on the father asked him again the same question and
the son answered irritably: “As I have told you before it is a crow.” When the
father asked the third time the expression on the son’s face gave of a slightly
angered emotion and repeated: “It is a crow, a crow, a crow!”.
The father then asked a fourth time the same question and that is when the son started shouting and yelling to his father: “Why do
you keep asking me the same question over and over again when I answered you 3
times already? What do you not understand?”
With that response the father stood up and went to his room.
He later came back with an old diary that he had kept ever since his son was
born. Then he asked his son to read the first page out loud:
“My son turns three today and as we are sitting on the sofa
he curiously asked me about a bird that was sitting on the window. Even after
answering he asked me 23 times more the same question. Every time I gave him
the same answer as before “It is a crow.” Every time out of those 23 times I
answered patiently with admiration and love to the innocent child before me.”
This story should serve as powerful message that sometimes
children are not patient enough with their elderly parents. Sometimes we are
not even aware of what our parents did for us ever since we were born. The
father answered his kid 23 times and his grown up child could not even hold it
together for three.
That means that patience is very important in our lives and
relationships and that our parents should not be seen as a burden, instead we
should think of ways to protect them and make them feel better and just be kind
to them.
So from this day on and after reading this story, try to be
understanding of them even when they do not give you any space for it. Even
when you don’t like their behavior, try to give them hope when they have
already lost it. Try to make them happy and do everything in your power to make
it so.
