I am 80-years-old but my children prefer sending money than paying me a visit

A golden ball of the sun was slowly receding through the Western horizon, illuminating the murky blue clouds. It was always a breathtaking sight to see the dull clouds suddenly becoming achingly beautiful. She never missed out on such evenings that easily let magic fall from the sky with the slenderness of a petal's fall. The peace and calmness they brought forced her to wear her innocence like old comfortable shoes. She tried to hold moments like this by taking in deep breaths and trying to hold them, all but in vain. Her mind frantically wavered between bittersweet feeling and joy.

Rebecca was an eighty year old woman who lived in her family home all alone. However, her lithe spirit attracted regular visits from her neighbors’ children to whom she happily shared old tales. She had children of her own but they had stopped calling on her as each of them instead, preferred sending money once in a while. Of cause, whenever she felt vulnerable and frailty was bringing her to the edge of human hopeless, she wished that her children were there for her.

The last time she saw all her children was 9 years before and during the burial of their father, the love of her life. Her mind these days carelessly wondered back to those days when her life was full and colored by normal chaos of a family. She always knew that such chaos had an ephemeral quality that could quickly fade away as time does. For this reason, she always held such moments as they made her own existence have relevance and meaning. Sometimes now, lonely hours filled her days as each day felt like going deeper and deeper in a dark tunnel.

Rebecca had deep love for her children and she never forgot to send a prayer each morning and such evenings to heavens to keep them safe and protected. Although they had almost abandoned her during this most wanting period of her life, she could never lay blame on them. "They are just children, my babies", she would remind herself whenever difficult questions or thoughts tried to slam into her. Rebecca had grown so old now that she only believed in moments, death and in God. Everything else seemed to be losing its meaning and importance.

Rebecca had tried in vain to understand what death really represented to the human existence. Did it mean fading away? Lost? Vanishing? However, she had realized with so much glee that she was never really alone. Beautiful memories of her younger days filled the empty spaces that tried to creep to her. Although she felt life slowly receding from her, she was too happy that she had had a chance to see it, experience it and live it.  

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