By Anne Anjao-Eboi
This is the only commandment with a promise - that if we honour our parents we shall live long.
Most of us have grown up in surroundings where love is manifested by our parents. The fathers may not show emotion outright but they show care when they take up financial responsibility in the house. Naturally, we reciprocate and find it easier to pay tribute to them by showering them with love and attention in their old age.
My concern, however, is with those who had traumatising childhoods, like a rape by a father who should be doting on you and protecting you; a drunkard father who batters his wife in full view of their children, who then see their mother cowering in the cold and darkness, gnashing her teeth and weeping bitterly.
It could also be that your mother who abdicated responsibility and you had to deal with one ‘uncle’ after another until one of these ‘uncles’ violated your sexual innocence.
Or maybe it was a lion of a father or a lioness of a mother who made your life very miserable — as soon as they came into the house, they caused disorientation and confusion.
Unscathed
Miraculously, you may have emerged physically unscathed but emotionally jarred, such that you feel excruciating pain every time you remember these incidents.
If you are a woman, you may chose to punish your parents by insisting that your uncle, not your father, walks you down the aisle. Or maybe you have not talked to your mother in years.
Then there are those who abuse their parents! Yes they do! I have witnessed someone do this.
There are frightening words from the Good Book for those who engage in this abomination:
"The eye that mocks a father, that scorns obedience to a mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures," the Bible decrees.
God demands that we must forgive all those who wrong us because no sin is too big or too small. We must then begin a healing and reconciliatory journey.
Whether we like it or not, our parents sired us. Whatever their weaknesses, we are not their judges. As long as there is willingness to reconcile, grab the opportunity and run with it.
When did you last place a call to your father in the village? When did you last Mpesa your mother? When did you last surprise them with a gift? When did you last pray for them?
You do not want a parent cursing you. Honour your mother and father so that all may go well with you.
