There lived a young boy with his parents and four other siblings in a small city. His parents were poor but they used to say that their kids were their biggest wealth. The young boy whose name was John was not happy with his life. He always had an argument with his parents who were poor but happy to be together. John was not like his siblings. He had big dreams, bigger than the walls of his parent’s small house. He wanted to fly high, higher than clouds in the sky. He always believed that money could buy anything in the world.
One day when his parents sent him to school like every other day, he ran away from school and got on a train without telling anyone. He thought he would get a petty job in a big city and would earn a lot of money. It was a long and hard journey of two days but somehow he managed to pull through. An old couple gave him something to eat and asked him about his parents. “I have lost them to a flood,” he said. The moment he stepped out of the train, he ran towards a church to gets something to eat.
Time went by. A few weeks later John met an old woman who gave him shelter since she had no one in her family. She asked him about his parents many times but he always said that they had died long back. The old woman never trusted him really and asked again but did not get a satisfactory answer. She did not have regular income but with her savings, she could easily manage to get John educated. John was happy as he was living his dream. A good school to study, a big house to live in and enough money to fulfill his necessities, he did not need anything else to be happy.
Back there in the village, his parents looked for him everywhere. They were poor so they could not do anything to get their son back.
Time went by; John grew up to be a handsome guy. He was happy that he had almost everything money could buy. He was rich as he had a lucrative job. He also found a beautiful girl who was head over heels in love with her. His parents in village used to pray for his health and long life. They had a gut feeling that their son was alive and living somewhere in some other part of the world. They only wanted to see him once.
Years later, the old woman who gave shelter to John was on deathbed called John and said, “All these years I have always felt you were hiding something from me. You said our parents had died but I never believed you.”
“It is useless to talk about them now. They are dead for me,” the boy said.
The woman asked in an angry tone, “Were they not good parents? Did they beat you or took your share of food or kept your hungry for days.”
“Actually no, they tried their level best to give me a good life but they were poor. My desire was to be a rich man. It was not possible back there in village, so I ran away from my house. I must thank you that you gave me a good life and today I am rich and have everything,” the boy replied.
“You are not rich John. You were rich back then when you had your parents with you. No, you are just an unfortunate kid who left his wealth there in the village. You could have stayed there with your parents. Had you tried hard, you would have turned your dreams into reality and given a good life to your parents too.”
She added, “Nothing is more valuable than the love of parents. It is priceless. I made the same mistake years back and today it is the biggest regret of my love. I wanted to tell you the same thing when I first met you but I knew you would not understand that. Go back to your parents and be there to help them. Those who have parents have everything.”
The boy realized his mistake and went back to village to look for his poor parents who had already died long back. His siblings hated him since he was the reason his parents could never be happy. He had lost his biggest wealth and now he had realized that.
There is nothing that can be more valuable than parents, they are truly larger than life.
