Give them a chance to start missing you.

I've just crossed my 1st year anniversary's posting on  May 2nd.

It's been a rather hectic and sort of erratic year - both ups and downs as with every life and as it should be.

Happily there's been a lot more happiness and love being spread all around rather than the other nasty stuff -  suffice it to say that due to nothing major to report nor to  expound upon I haven't posted - in general there's been some serenity, some disquiet, a lot of exasperation (especially with the local political situation) but many occasions of real "happy moments" ... after all - isn't that what's life all about? 

At a certain stage in one's life, one tends to reflect back upon what one has accomplished (or has not) and if truth be told, no one can say that he was entirely satisfied that he or she has led the life that he/she had wanted, planned or even anticipated.

An ideal or perfect life is not to be.

Being human, one tends to go for perfection anyway, irregardless of the obstacles, or in spite of it.

My lot in life has been, happily to express it out loud, mostly good, sporadically could have been a lot better and in fact from time to time was very trying - at least challenging, almost to the stage of one falling off a cliff  - but eventually the spirit of family and of good fortune had somehow or other fortuitously stepped in.

There's this one little interesting question at the end of the day.

What would one have done differently - if at all one had wanted to do things differently in the first place?

In my case, in hindsight, I thought that I might (or should)  have been a lot less being an over-bearing parent or partner, both being over-protective and caring; maybe I  should even have been a lot more relaxed, laid back and receptive and passive... for me I found it very difficult with the sort of upbringing that I had. 

I was brought up in a very strict, regimented and stuffy family in the late 50's and 60's - where both the family name and cultural tradition were the templates of our regulated lives.

Because of that I had never given my own family in the late 70's and 80's  a chance to know me better; and later on in the growing up years had probably paid too much  overbearing attention over every step each and every one of them made.  

I was always there - a phonecall away when one of them fell sick; just 15 minutes away when they needed a ride; calmed their fears; uplifted their sadness; had fed and clothed and sheltered them - as a parent was duty bound to do anyway, and all that other everyday living stuff...

Thinking back maybe I should have once in  a while left them there when they were hurting, when they were in need, when they had wanted someone to be there for them? Maybe that would have helped them strengthened their character?

Maybe I should have given them a chance  to have felt how it was to be lonely; to have felt hunger; neglect; solitude; unloved; lost; in despair; homeless and unsheltered?

Maybe I shouldn't have insisted that they must come back home for a nice warm  meal once in a while after they had grown up and gone their own way?

Maybe I shouldn't have advised them to be wary of the weaknesses of the many different vices they will encounter in  life - like  smoking,gambling,insincerity,disloyalty,intoxication and being uncouth and loud?

Maybe I should have just left them to their own devices, to find out things in life the way that  I did, on my own - without, or with a minimum of any parental guidance or control?

Maybe that was what was  best.

One now looks back  at oneself in the mirror and realised that - being very independent at sixteen then - many years ago - in the mid-60's - that one hasn't done too badly after all.

Being rebellious is the scourge of the young. 

But for us now it should be time for us to  sit back and relax and to enjoy the rest of our lives -  most of all, to finally let them, your wife, your children - to  start missing you. 

Maybe then one day they will realise that all that you had ever wanted in your life was for them to  find and to lead a better life than the one you had lived before.

Isn't it sad to know that chances are by the time that one of them realises this, you might not be around anymore for them to acknowledge it.

Maybe that's how things are  supposed to work out in the first place.

Ain't life grand?