My friend rang me re­cent­ly for some ad­vice. Her broth­er has moved in­to their grand­moth­er’s home with his fam­i­ly and moved her in­to a small room at­tached to the house; leav­ing her iso­lat­ed. Are we hu­man be­ings be­com­ing more in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic, more self­ish?  

Lisa Marie Bob­by, a life coach, re­minds us that: “Emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence ex­ists on a spec­trum, and some in­di­vid­u­als are high­er in emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence than oth­ers. One symp­tom of low emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence is the ten­den­cy to be self-ab­sorbed, or ex­clu­sive­ly con­cerned about what you’re think­ing, feel­ing, need­ing and want­i­ng, in­stead of the thoughts, feel­ings, needs and de­sires of oth­ers.”

Let’s “check” our­selves. Con­sid­er the char­ac­ter­is­tics of self­ish and self­less peo­ple. We are called to LOVE, and love is not self­ish. Kendra Cher­ry, a psy­choso­cial re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion spe­cial­ist, tells us that: “Self-ab­sorp­tion doesn’t al­low you to grow as a per­son. It can al­so de­prive you of healthy re­la­tion­ships that pro­mote emo­tion­al well-be­ing.”

In 2021, Pope Fran­cis in­sti­tut­ed World Day for Grand­par­ents and the El­der­ly, since, he be­lieves, grand­par­ents are of­ten for­got­ten. He says, they “are the link be­tween gen­er­a­tions, pass­ing on the ex­pe­ri­ence of life and faith to the young.” The Day is to be held on the fourth Sun­day in Ju­ly, close to the feast of Je­sus’ grand­par­ents, Saints Joachim and Anne. The third cel­e­bra­tion takes place on Sun­day, Ju­ly 23.  

In his mes­sage for the third cel­e­bra­tion, he laments how of­ten grand­par­ents and the el­der­ly are trag­i­cal­ly pushed aside. He says: “Let us ho­n­our them, nei­ther de­priv­ing our­selves of their com­pa­ny nor de­priv­ing them of ours.  May we nev­er al­low the el­der­ly to be cast aside!” He urges us to nev­er for­get or aban­don them: “Their pres­ence in fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties, is a pre­cious one, for it re­minds us that we share the same her­itage and are part of a peo­ple com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing its roots ... The church, as well as so­ci­ety, need them, for they en­trust to the present the past that is need­ed to build the fu­ture.”

Since World Youth Day will take place in Lis­bon, Por­tu­gal, from Au­gust 1-6, Pope Fran­cis stress­es how main­tain­ing qual­i­ty con­nec­tions with the old­er gen­er­a­tions has price­less val­ue for the young. “The Lord trusts that young peo­ple, through their re­la­tion­ships with the el­der­ly, will re­alise that they are called to cul­ti­vate mem­o­ry and recog­nise the beau­ty of be­ing part of a much larg­er his­to­ry.”  

In­ter­gen­er­a­tional di­a­logue is crit­i­cal if we are to share sto­ries with the younger gen­er­a­tion. I am thank­ful to my cousin Trevene Nicome and oth­er mem­bers of the Nicome fam­i­ly who are prepar­ing for the fourth Nicome Fam­i­ly Re­union in Brook­lyn, New York, on Sat­ur­day, Ju­ly 22. The first three gath­er­ings were held in Trinidad in 2011, 2013, and 2016. These events pro­vide a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to cel­e­brate our rich her­itage and lega­cy with the younger gen­er­a­tion and strength­en fam­i­ly bonds,

My ma­ter­nal grand­moth­er, Enid Nicome, mi­grat­ed to Trinidad from Venezuela around 1915. She died be­fore I was born. I knew her sis­ter, Emel­da, a most gen­er­ous woman, who lived in Ari­ma, and her broth­er, Leo, and his fam­i­ly, through our many vis­its to his and Aunt Clara’s house in Pa­lo Seco. Those were won­der­ful vis­its. It was the on­ly time I got up close to ducks and, in­deed, to tast­ing duck meat. Aunt Clara al­ways treat­ed us to this dish when we vis­it­ed. The Nicome fam­i­ly is large. Many of them live in San­gre Grande, Pa­lo Seco, and the USA.

Robert Hen­ry Fitzger­ald Man­ning, my ma­ter­nal grand­fa­ther, came to T&T from Bar­ba­dos with his two broth­ers. He won a lot­tery and pur­chased co­coa plan­ta­tions in San­gre Grande, prop­er­ty in Rich­mond Street etc. He raised my moth­er when her moth­er died. He died when I was about four years old.

I knew my pa­ter­nal grand­par­ents, Nanan and Pool­bassia Ramdeen. They lived in San­gre Chiq­ui­to. I have writ­ten about them in the past. Nanan is the grand­son of Mada­ree and Oozerun Di­al, who ar­rived in T&T on the ship, the Edith Moore, on De­cem­ber 6, 1858, and were sent to Mt Plaisir Es­tate, Cunu­pia, to work as in­den­tured labour­ers. Their six chil­dren pros­pered, be­com­ing co­coa plan­ta­tion own­ers when co­coa was “King”. Pool­bassia’s Guyas­ingh fam­i­ly, like all those list­ed above, con­tin­ue to con­tribute much to our so­ci­ety/world. Re­mem­ber the Chi­nese proverb: “To for­get one’s an­ces­tors is to be a brook with­out a source, a tree with­out a root.”

Let’s build/main­tain re­la­tion­ships with our grand­par­ents/the el­der­ly, and thank God for their lives.