Thought for the month of January

We often do not understand those who are closest to us until it is too late.
This is especially true of our parents upon whom we heap the faults of our upbringing.
Parents struggle to do the best thing for their children, but these efforts are seldom appreciated until the children themselves become parents and enter into the war of attrition that we call growing up. When we are adults, our activities take us far from our parents' domain. The death of parents is perhaps the last part of growing up, usually happening when we are raising our own children, so that we stand midway between youth and age.

Those who now find themselves in the eldest generation of a family discover new responsibilities. As they become grandparents, they look to the new generation to solve old, long-standing problems. This ancestral bequest tends to gather weight and momentum as it rolls from generation to generation, and sometimes becoming too heavy for any one person to carry.

Making peace between ourselves and our ancestors requires two things
Firstly, the ability to speak the truth lovingly,
and secondly , the ability to fogive and let go of issues that have muddied the way betwwen us and the dead.

We need to offer a word of love, a sign or admiration or praise, a visit, a gift, even a phone call, some direct communication while there is the opportunity, before the time for regret is all that is left.