A memory said out loud

As the years go by, brooding begins to request prominence in your life, suddenly we are hit by crises of existentialism, to the point that I feel as if I were an old man.

But this morning, I remembered something that happened to me in childhood.

This caught my attention, and that is why I decided to put it into written lines because I have the feeling that I remember a few things from my childhood with absolute clarity.

This particular anecdote, I not only remember it very well, but at this moment I could tell you it is one of the most important life lessons I had, and maybe it will even reach the children that I do not have now.

I remember when I was at school, I used to finish classes in the afternoon, around 6 pm. School was a long way from my home, so my parents had asked a cousin to pick me up every afternoon and take me home. My cousin did it with great affection. Also, at that time, her job consisted of transporting children from schools to their homes, and I would simply be one more.

When my classes ended, I always went out to school front and sat in the main entrance to wait for my transport. However, I noticed that in some afternoons, my cousin was late, and the sunsets would fall, so since I did not like to be alone, I decided to hire the company services of some classmates in exchange for a few cents of my small allowance.

Until then I had been able to handle the situation a bit, but on one occasion I not only saw the evening fall, but I also glimpsed how the moon was throwing its arm behind my back. That day I felt terror because I did not know how to return home. I did not know which bus I should take, and my money was not enough for a taxi, I even think I did not know the exact address of my house. For reasons that I do not know, that day my cousin did not pick me up at the school door. My friends had thought that the credit paid with my allowance had come to an end.

So, I decided to go to a nearby house, with the luck that a person who knew my father lived there. I don’t even remember his name, but when he saw my tears, he decided to take me home.

The situation reached the ears of my father, I do not know in what way, but what he did later, I still remember it today as if it were yesterday, and it was nothing extraordinary.

One afternoon my father picked me up at school and we stopped at one corner nearby, so he said: Look, if you take this street and continue straight, after walking for a while, you will find my place of work, and even if I am not there at that moment, I know you will know better at that point, how to get home. That was a revelation. I think I never had problems of that kind again, but today with a few years on top, this is what I learned from that very simple anecdote:

1. There will be situations in which you will be alone and have to solve whatever problem is presented to you.

2. Money is a help in many circumstances, but it does not solve everything.

3. Knowledge is power, when you learn new things, the path is illuminated and certain problems cease to exist.

4. Children must be given tools that allow them to solve problems instead of solving them ourselves (yes, I know I’m not a parent yet, but if I were, I think I would do this way)

And that’s it, it’s just a memory said out loud.