- Enock Okong’o reflects on the quiet emotional needs of parents as they grow older.
- He asks adult children to make time for visits, conversations and meaningful moments with their parents.
- His message is simple: ageing parents often need their children’s presence more than material support.
Know this first: we are your parents. The same hands that carried you to the clinic, that mended your uniforms, that prayed with you before exams. The same voices that told you bedtime stories and later sat up waiting when you came home late.
I’m writing because my heart is full, and because I want us, with your mum, to age gracefully — together, with you close.
Come home as often as possible. It doesn’t have to be a holiday or a funeral or when you need something signed. Just come. Sit with us in the sitting room. Drink tea from the chipped mugs you grew up with. Walk with me to the shamba and laugh when I say the weeds can wait. Help your mother in the kitchen and argue with your siblings over who makes the best ugali. Those ordinary Saturdays are what keep us going through the long weeks. Your visit is the medicine we don’t get from the hospital.
Call us, even when nothing is wrong
Call us too. Even at night. Make it a habit. Not only when you are in trouble, or when you need M-Pesa, or when there’s an emergency. Call on a Tuesday at 9pm just to say, “Dad, I’m tired today.” Tell us about the small promotion, the bad traffic, the funny thing your boss said. We may not understand half of it, but we’ll listen. And we’ll sleep better knowing you’re safe.
When you’re home, please listen to us. Aged people like to be listened to — especially by our adult children and grandchildren. We relive our lives in you. Let us tell you again about walking 7 kilometres to school, about the first job we lost, about your grandmother’s cooking. Don’t rush us. Don’t scroll while we talk. Accommodate our divergent views. We may not agree on politics or TikTok or how you’re raising your kids. That’s fine. Let’s talk, but let’s avoid heated debates. We don’t need to win. We just need to be heard.
Our health depends on your presence more than medicine. The doctor can give us tablets for pressure and vitamins for bones. But nothing lowers our blood pressure like seeing your face at the gate. Nothing makes the joints feel lighter than holding a grandchild who runs to call us shosho, guka or Sokoro with those small arms stretched wide.
We want to hear you, feel you, and yes — we will “complain to you” now. About the neighbors, about the power bill, about the pain in the knee. Because we are now like children again. Be patient with us the way we were patient with you.
Let us carry each other
And tell us your story, so we can open up to you too. Don’t assume we won’t understand. Tell us about the job interview, the heartbreak, the rent, the dreams you’re scared to say out loud. When you open up, it gives us permission to open up too — to share our fears about aging, about money, about being a burden. Let’s carry each other.
God bless you. You’ve worked hard and made us proud. Your degrees, your jobs, your families — they are a testimony.
But remember this: education is not the third thing after God and us, your parents. We were your first school. Before teachers, before professors, it was us teaching you how to say thank you, how to pray, how to respect elders.
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We are not asking for much. Just your time. Just your voice. Just you.
We love you more than you know.
With love,
Dad
By Enock Okong’o
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