By: John Silva – April, 2015
Dancing on the razor’s edge? Impossible you say. It can’t be done. It is too thin and its edge is too sharp. If you fell on its edge you would bleed out before anyone could help you. How can this be, you say?
Of course, I am speaking figuratively. The dance I am speaking about is called parenthood. Parenthood… that most difficult of jobs that does not come with an instruction book… How odd.
It seems the best we can do is to learn from other examples, and try to make good choices and avoid bad ones.
If only, it were that easy. Choices… what to do?… what to say? Choices, we’ve all had to make them. Some choices were easy, some not so much. Were they the right ones? We hoped so. Most of the time, we thought so. But who really knows?
Did we have questions? Sure. When to say yes? When to say no? Do we say maybe sometime, or we’ll have to wait and see? Regrets… oh yes, we do… did we really have to work so many hours? Why were we so critical when Jimmy needed understanding? Should we have spent more time with the kids… with our spouse? Would it have made a difference?
If only, we could talk to them… but now its too late. If only we hadn’t been so strict, maybe she wouldn’t have committed suicide. If only we hadn’t been so lenient maybe he wouldn’t have overdosed on drugs. If only, we had done things differently… if only we hadn’t hurt her pride. If only… If only… If only…
Did we teach him to be fair and tell the truth? Did we tell him about right and wrong? Did we tell him one thing and then do something else? Did we explain that loving is better than hating? Were we the cause of his rebelliousness? Why was he so angry and hateful? Was it just her nature or was it a result of how we raised her? Nature or nurture? Who can tell? If only she hadn’t gotten pregnant when she was just fifteen.
Hope? We all hoped for the best. We hoped they would find themselves and a life worth living. We hoped that they would find love and leave our planet better than they found it.
We gave them our love and our wisdom… such as it was. We gave them what we thought they needed. And, sometimes we gave too much. And, sometimes not enough.
Dreams… we’ve had a few. We dreamt of being perfect and loving parents and being loved in return.
Regardless of what we think we did or didn’t do, they are grown up. And now, they do what they think best.
Did it matter? Who knows? Did we do our best? I think so.
Soon… our lives will be over, and all of the good and bad things we did are just memories. You can cherish them or despise them. You can share them with your children or not. We bequeath to you our children and to the rest of the world our deeds and best efforts. We tried to do our best, and now we hope you will do the same.
As each of you begins your dance… on the razor’s edge.