And This Too Shall Pass

As parents, I think we always want our children to be happy. For their lives to be like fairy-tales with white picket fences and perfection that we were somehow never really able to achieve.  I mean we’re all okay and we made it; we’ve had some bumps along the way, but we also had some beautiful, intelligent children and we want their roads to be slick as glass for smooth sailing.

Well the fact is, their lives will be just like ours. Sometimes good, sometimes awful and heart-breaking, and many times, unexpected. They will have losses, disappointments, failures, and complicated circumstances; because we created human beings, not robots. They have blood running through their veins, not wires and electricity. They cry crocodile tears, lose red-hot tempers, and scream with raucous joy.

I raised my children to be fearless, to understand the strength and importance of a good education, and to never settle for less than what they believe in. To believe that the truth was the only way to live, and nothing less should be given or accepted. To never be afraid to stand-up when everyone else is sitting down, and to speak your mind and your heart with respect, giving the words the reverence they deserve when you deliver them.

I also taught them that life is not always fair, we don’t always win, and we don’t always get what we think we deserve. That there are three sides to every story, one-side / the other side / and the whole side; and that when it’s their turn to recite the side that belongs to them, they should be able to honor and uphold the words that they speak.

Sadly, though they do their best to live the way they were raised, they cannot control outside circumstances that intertwine within their constructed walls / boundaries. This can result in blind-sided pain and hurt that no words I could have ever said would have prepared them for in the end. We as people who love and trust, always depend on the system of honor whether it is reciprocated or not.

But that’s the thing here, we’re ALL human’s; we’ll make mistakes in judgment, have thoughts in retrospect, and have many visions of hind-sight that we can never regain. So in those situations, I urge them to stand strong, hold their head up, and take the high road; I recite every single solitary cliché that I can, to make them understand that to lower their standards to feel better is never the answer.

I have heard that saying “You can’t go home again” more times than I can count; well you can come home again. Home is family and love, and it’s where you go when you need to know that the people who loved you the most, always will.  It’s a place to heal and feel safe and no matter what, both of my boys / men should always know, that my home is right where their heart belongs, because it’s right where their hearts were born.