Seventy-eight-year-old Shukla Wati keeps looking outside longingly, wishing one of her eight children would come to visit her one day.
It has become a daily routine since she moved into Samabula Senior Citizens Home last Monday, following help from the Police and the Social Welfare Department.
Her story got everyone talking yesterday during the celebrations of the International for Old Persons at the home.
Before the Samabula home, she stayed at a relative’s home. There, she spoke to a daughter by phone and asked for help.
“I told my daughter I don’t have a place to stay and I don’t know what to do. She just hung up on me,” Ms Wati said.
“I know my eight children have their own families and they have told me they cannot look after me.
“I never dreamed that one day my own kids will turn their back on me.”
Emotional Ms Wati said: “My children do not even know that I am now residing at the Samabula Senior Citizens Home.
“I want to be with my children. I miss them so much.
“At least one should have taken responsibility of me. None of my children want me.
“We were very poor but I worked in the sugarcane farms to support and fulfill their needs.”
Ms Wati was born, raised and married in Valley Road in Sigatoka. Her children were also born and raised there. Now she cannot hear and see properly.
Her husband died about 20 years ago and due to some land issues her family had to move to Suva.
“Being a mother I did so much to fulfill all my children’s needs and in return this is what I get.
“They do not even care for me,” she said.
Ms Wati said she even begged for money from her neighbours to support her children.
“We were so poor that we could not afford to send our children to school.
“My husband told me not to send children to school but I begged in front of the teacher to give uniforms to my children and provide them with education,” she said.
In tears Ms Wati said all her hard work, love and supporting her children was a waste.
“My children are saying to me that they now have their own family to support. Therefore, they cannot look after me,” she said.
“I last spoke to one of my daughters and told her that I have no place to stay and my daughter hanged up the phone.”
Ms Wati said for past few years she had been residing at her relatives place here and there but recently, they took her to Central Police Station.
“The Police officer took me to the Saint Vincent de Paul Home at Brown Street in Suva but I was refused.
“I was then taken to Toorak Police Station and the Police Officers there spoke with the Social Welfare Department and finally I got a shelter at the Samabula Senior Citizens Home,” she said.
Her message to the children yesterday: “I begged to support you and you do not care for me.
“Your father did not care much about you but I did.
“You all are now well educated and have good jobs but you do not care about your mother.
“You have forgotten all my sacrifices towards you.”
