Next, it means you have to look at your parents as they really are, not the way you have them frozen in that part of your brain where you are always a kid. This is also not an easy thing to do. One reason is that your parents keep treating you the way they did when you were 12.
Some things remain the same
Even though my mom is 80 and my dad is 81, I still pretty much get the same greeting I got 40 years ago.
“Hi, Paul. Are you hungry?” says my mom, before I can close the front door. “Do you want a sandwich? I just made some muffins.”
She’s in the kitchen putting down a plate before I get my jacket off. My father, who is already seated for lunch (some things never change), gives me “the look.”
“You could use a haircut,” he declares. He’s been saying this to me almost weekly since 1974. Now, he says it to me – and my two sons. I guess it’s nice to have a family tradition.
Some things change
Some things are different. When I visit with the kids my father slips them 10-dollar bills when he thinks I’m not looking. When we were kids, we had to fight for a buck to go to the store. “It’s Christmas around here every day,” he would say, reluctantly handing over a dollar. Today my daughter gets five bucks every time she hugs him. She would do it anyway, of course, but the money is a nice bonus.
All of this – the visits, the kids’ birthdays, the dinners, the steady stream of day-to-day events – moves along so seamlessly that the passage of time is somehow disguised; so gradual we do not see it. And then something happens.
Page 1 of 2 – Read page 2 to find out how to live in the moment
