Looking Back

This journey is not at all what I expected. I am in a place right now where the trail has leveled a bit, and my pack has slid to the ground, I am resting. But I look back along the trail and see the spots where I fell, where the trail was awfully steep, where it seemed that danger lurked around every turn. What I see are the spots that caused me the greatest angst. These spots were also of my own making.

This past weekend my bride and I went north to get our Isaac "fix". He is the youngest of our grandkids and is doing new stuff every day. If we don't make a plan to see him every week or so he just changes too much for us to keep up. He is working on the entire crawling thing. Arms extended, one knee in the proper position, but getting the other leg to work puts him on his face..it doesn't make him happy. But he grabs stuff, he is eating like a champ, he laughs at his daddy, and he is still not sleeping well. His mommy and daddy are payin' for their raisin' as we used to say, because neither one of them slept well as babies either.

After Mr Isaac went to bed, our d-i-l fixed a great dinner and we cracked open a bottle of chardonnay while we just sat and visited. The talk turned to my son's experiences in high school and the events that included him and us. My observation is that he remembers far more fondly than I do the times when we were at odds. From my rest stop on the trail, looking back at that particular trail events, all I see are my mis-steps. Over the years the impact of my poor parenting have grown in their significance. I made all the mistakes and they were deep and eternal from my view. He looks back and doesn't even remember a lot of that time and certainly doesn't view it as a huge deal. In fact, he kind of laughs about the entire deal, he laughs about his own response, he laughs at our reactions, it does not seem to have scarred him nearly as much as it has me.

And I get this from all my kids. They all think their raising was kind of fun. That we laughed a lot, that we had some great memories at the kitchen table. They remember things with great fondness that I have forgotten. They have forgotten the things that I deeply regret. Is it possible that I wasn't quite a bad a parent as I have always believed I was? My personal thought was that my weaknesses were overshadowed with my bride's innate ability to make it all work.

But, as they say, the proof is in the pudding. All my kids are mature, modest, compassionate people. Far more so than I am. They all are in good marriages, they all are raising outstanding grandkids. They all get along. And we all still laugh together. This last observation is possibly the one I am most proud of. We laugh. A lot.

It is about time to pick up the pack and get started again. But suddenly the trail ahead looks a little easier than the one behind. But the trail behind also looks a little more pleasantly remarkable than I remembered it. The straps fit well, the legs feel strong, new trail to be covered.

Godspeed to the travelers. I think we may be better at it than we realized.
Don