Navigating the gift of a second chance: With Love by Simran Mangharam

Navigating the gift of a second chance: With Love by Simran Mangharam
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On my morning walks in the park, I have made new friends across age groups. One of these, Roopa, is a cheerful, sprightly 74-year-old who has lived alone since the death of her husband six years ago.

Her two daughters live in different parts of the world. Amid the lockdowns and restrictions of the pandemic, they weren’t able to make it home for their routine visits, and she often talked about how much she missed seeing them and her grandchildren.

Then, sometime in end-2020, companionship turned up in an unexpected way, one that has now caused some turbulence in Roopa’s relationship with one of her daughters.

A 70-something gentleman moved into our neighbourhood in Bengaluru about 18 months ago. Roopa gathers fallen flowers in the park every day and the gentleman began helping her with this. Soon, they were taking their walks together. I often saw them sitting in the park, immersed in conversation. It turned out they had a lot in common. He too had lost his spouse. They had similar interests and read the same books.

The turbulence began last December. One of Roopa’s daughters came to visit, and a few days in I got a call from Roopa. She sounded very disturbed, and said she wanted to consult me as a relationship coach. She seemed low when we met, nothing like her usual self.

Her daughter was very upset about her newfound friendship, she told me. Roopa was upset too, disappointed at her daughter’s reaction. Why can’t I have a male friend, she asked. Both her daughters lead their own lives thousands of miles away. Could she not lead the life she wanted to as well? Roopa enjoys the company of this gentleman. He treats her with respect. “Why can’t we be each other’s companions,” she asked.

Roopa wanted my professional opinion: Was she doing something wrong?

I asked Roopa how she felt when she was with this gentleman. She said she felt re-energised, so much so that she sometimes felt like a little girl. She finally had someone to really talk to, about more than the day-to-day, and she revelled in that kind of interaction.

It was also a new feeling for her to be able to speak her mind, debate, even argue. She was not dependent on this man, as she had been on the other men in her life, from her father to her elder brother and her husband. In this friendship, she felt liberated.

We then discussed why her daughter might be reacting to this friendship the way she was. Perhaps it was upsetting for her to see her mother enjoy the company of a man who was not her father. Or maybe she saw her mother content and happy and mistakenly felt she was no longer needed in her parent’s life. Perhaps she was worried about what people might say.

Roopa rightly wanted to clear the air with her daughter. I suggested she keep these possible factors in mind when broaching the subject. I also confirmed for her that she was not doing anything wrong. She deserved to make her own choices, and lead the rest of her life as she chose.

The subsequent conversation with her daughter did not go as smoothly as Roopa had hoped. The goodbyes were strained when her daughter left. More than three months on, neither of them has raised the subject again, though Roopa is still hoping that her relationship with her daughter will recover.

I’m hoping the daughter will see the irony of the role-reversal; who hasn’t had some version of this argument with a parent in their youth? I’m also hoping the daughter will admit that it is not only the young who deserve their freedom.

Choices, companionship and change can come into our lives at any time. It is not just the women at the start of their lives who deserve the right to choose.

(Simran Mangharam is a dating and relationship coach and can be reached on simran@floh.in)

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