In Search of Our Parents




My beautiful daughter Kimberly and her daughter Elizabeth
(who is SO very much like Kimberly was when she was a little girl)

 

My last post caused some hurt to my daughter, although it was not intended to. Her responses to the posting really made me aware of a number of truths that us 'children' go through as we struggle to become adults. For me, it is easy to recognize that as children we really do not understand the complexities of the people who are our 'parents'. No matter how much we try as we are growing up, and even in adulthood, we look at our parents through the eyes of the experiences we have had with them ourselves. Those experiences color our view of who our parents are, and sometimes we can carry those views with us to our own death.



I saw this quite often when I worked with Hospice patients, and see it now in those I counsel. It is not an easy journey to really go in search of who our parents are, and what is it that makes them tick. I met quite a few 'children' of Hospice patients who would share their stories with me, stories mostly from their childhood and early adulthood, and they based their view of who their mother or father were from that point in time. Then I would hear my patients story, and in getting to know them as an individual person, it soon became apparent that the adult child did not have a clue as to who their parent really was. Many times in my role as Spiritual Counselor, it fell upon me to find a way for parent and child to reach a place to see each other as they really were. Not as child/parent, but as person/person. Sometimes it was an easy road, as both were ready to put down their fears, their guilt, their blame, and really 'see' each other.  Sometimes it was a very difficult road and much time was spent on reconciliation, explanations for actions or reactions, until peace came. Other times there was no place of peace found between child and parent.

I liken it to the movie Avatar, where the central theme was how connected everyone was and how important it was to look at someone and say..."I SEE YOU". When one person really sees another, they see a spiritual being on a human journey, just like themselves. They see that each person does the best they can, with the knowledge they have at any given time, and they allow the gift of forgiveness and love to flow bringing healing and peace to all concerned.

 

My own search for who my parents were was not an easy one. I am the type of person who has a basic need to know not just what a person does, but the why behind what they do. I really never understood my mother until I stopped looking at her through a child's eyes, and began to really 'see' her. I am so very grateful that in the last weeks of her life she was able to open the door in the wall she built to protect herself from others. She let me see the little girl in her who had been abused by her father. She let me see the pain and hurt, the anger and loneliness which was the result of her not knowing how to cope with what had happened to her as a child. Once I had that information, it was easy to really 'see' her, and to come to that place of us standing together loving, forgiving and letting everything fall by the wayside that we had both been carrying around for years.

 My dad's early life was shadowed by abuse also. His mother and father were divorced. His mother left him with her mother, Grandma Poll quite often as she made her way through her life. Daddy was beaten quite often by Grandma Poll. He also saw his dad, who was an alcoholic, beat his stepmother quite often. Daddy made a promise to himself, that he would never drink, and he would never raise his hand against his wife or children. He kept that promise.

Yet still, even though the conversations I had with my parents were revealing and healing, there remains so much about my mother's life, and my dad's life that I do not know. I believe this is so for most of us 'children.' To really know who our parents are takes stepping outside of our 'selves', it takes time and effort, it takes a willingness to ask questions, to be ready for the answers, and be ready for there to not be any answers also.

When I wrote that my oldest daughter really doesn't know who I am, it was meant as an acknowledgement that most of us are right there with her, in a place where we know some things about our parents, yet there is so much more that we can learn and there are things that we may never know.

Kimberly and I

And by the way....it is also a two way street where we 'parents' really don't know who our children are.

There is a lot about my beautiful oldest daughter that I don't know, yet one thing is for certain...we have lots of opportunities to continually be in search of who each of us are, how we have grown, how we have changed since we both lived in the same house. The things I do know about her are so very awesome, and I cherish every moment spent with her when we visit Texas.