I Had A Real Good Mother and Father

My relationship with my son has always felt, despite his own particular set of challenges, pretty easy -- solid -- steady. Not so with my daughter -- we tend to have higher highs and lower lows. She's like a little version of me -- and sometimes I want nothing more than to embrace that version wholeheartedly, and other times it involves me having to face something in myself that I may not really want to face. If I don't, though, she'll just show it to me again.

I noticed something with her today that I've noticed before, but today was the day I was ready to really take in the lesson, you know? And here's what I noticed: The more welcoming I am to my own parents, the closer my daughter seems to feel to me. Or maybe the easier it is for me to feel close to her? Or both? It's probably both. I know it's all connected.

And so, for her, for the little girl in me, and for the grown-up woman and mother I am today, I'm forging ahead into what has been, at times, a precarious relationship with my parents.

I love this Gillian Welch song, and I know that whatever pieces of history I could bring up as evidence that its title does not hold true for me are only some of the pieces. When I'm willing to look at the whole picture -- I see two human beings doing the best they can do in this life.

So while Gillian laments the loss of her parents, having already passed on, and hopes to meet them in heaven:

I know that if I can not meet them on high

Then how lonely I will be

For what good is my journey

If I miss out on eternity

I'm going to keep trying to meet mine right here on Earth, knowing, as my daughter reminds me, that embracing them is, to an extent, necessary in fully embracing myself.

For what good is my journey, if I can't do that?