By Rabbie Serumula
Isn’t this the way for so many? We’re all masters of delay—saving, sacrificing, putting away small joys in a glass jar to be opened “when the time is right.” We hold back on buying the soft couch, on taking the trip, on building the house in our hometown. We wait until we retire, until the children are grown, until the years of hard work finally bear fruit. But what happens when life itself turns out to be the very thing that needs our attention now?
In a video sent to me over WhatsApp, a child narrated her uncle’s journey. After 38 years of living in the diaspora, her uncle finally returned to his homeland, Zambia, at age 63. It had taken him nine long years to build a house worthy of a grand homecoming—a six-bedroom marvel. This was his dream, the legacy of a life spent working tirelessly abroad. But now, her uncle doesn't set foot in the master bedroom he had so carefully planned upstairs, he lives in the living room downstairs.
As it turns out, Climbing the stairs is now too much for him; the strength he once had is gone. It takes him 15 minutes, even with help, and so he has settled on a simpler life downstairs, while his caretaker occupies the grand bedroom he had once imagined for himself.
It’s a story steeped in irony. The uncle, like so many of us, had built his life around a vision of happiness waiting somewhere in the future. He gave up today’s comforts in exchange for an imagined tomorrow, every sacrifice measured against the promise of returning home to a life of ease. And now, here he is, surrounded by the fruits of his labour, but unable to fully enjoy them.
The six-bedroom house, with its echoing rooms and views from upstairs windows he will never see, is the blind side of a life spent waiting—a dream achieved but never fully inhabited. It is the cost of waiting for the right moment, a story of delayed gratification, an endless postponement of comfort, all for an image of himself that he finally stepped into, only to find he didn’t quite fit.
Watching that video, I thought about our culture of delay. Our promises to ourselves that someday, when the circumstances align, we’ll live well. But maybe, just maybe, we are missing something essential in these endless preparations. We’re always waiting for the conditions to be perfect, for the right place or time, while the present moment slips away, unmarked and underappreciated. Perhaps it’s time to stop waiting, to create homes where we stand and to live in each room while we still can.
Waiting is more than the ability to be patient. It is knowing when the waiting needs to stop, when it’s time to settle into the very present we’re always passing through. For the uncle, maybe it’s not the six bedrooms that matter most, but the people around him, the memories he’s making right now.