Honor Thy Mother and Father

My father will be 89 this October.

My mother recently turned 74.

I am 34 years old.

These are ages that keep me up at night. Most people, with Providence's grace, enjoy years with their parents in an adult parent/child relationship. Many of my friends still have grandparents to enjoy in their 30s. Many share how their children (who are my children's ages) make fantastic memories with their grandparents, or have great experiences meeting a great grandparent. What blessings! I always celebrate with them in their joy over these moments, while inside I'm envious of this time they have and the apparent ease of these generational experiences.

Inside my soul - I feel a race against the clock. A very mortal clock.

I feel a race to give my children the gift of knowing their grandparents while they still can.

I feel the pressure to enjoy and honor my parents while I can. 

I feel the pressure to let my children soak up the RARE blessing of a fairly spry, VERY 'mentally with it', almost 90 year old grandfather when so many men don't live to 90.  If they do, not many can be as "with it" and physically able to be so present as the patriarch of their family (and such a spiritual head of the family as well). My father LOVES me so fiercely and makes sure I know it though his words and actions. He ADORES his grandchildren, all of them, and they know he does. They are drawn to him.

I feel this intense pressure to enjoy this time with MY father, to honor him with my life while I still can at a "thirty-something" age - a decade where so many of us are still defining ourselves, making mistakes, and growing up before the seemingly peaceful, candid, and surprisingly confident forties I hear so much about. I feel very inadequate at times trying to be in my 30s with an incredible father. A father who has lived a phenomenal life oozing indescribable wisdom and life experience as only an almost 90 year old can understand, wield, and share with the younger generations. A life spanning the Great Depression, two World Wars (fighting in the second one), countless world conflicts (serving in one of them  - Korea) and the ups and downs each decade brings while providing well for his family in each one with HONOR and TRUTH.

I am having one of those moments where I feel I'm not cutting it, and I'm not making making use of the time, each ONE day God gives us, to both Carpe Diem and simply live in Kairos moments.

I feel like I am not honoring my father by being 'me'. I honestly feel like my 30s have not honored him much at all, and unlike many of my contemporaries, I don't have time to get it right. Even making ONE simple day count feels inadequate. One day of honor seems to hardly make a dent in the invisible, but heavy wall of family history. One piled high with bricks of personal intentions that didn't measure up to what he deserves, yet have built up to a pretty high wall despite my best intentions. Because for every moment I honor him, I often times find myself pulling away, hiding my thirty-somethingness, to protect my heart from knowing I'm seemingly not bringing honor to him. So, for every moment that is Kairos, I have 3 that are selfish and self-protective-moments I regret at the end of the day in prayer because I should be more present to him while I have the opportunity. I feel I need to be living and breathing those commandments - and that ever important #5.

I feel my life, dreams, and personal decisions do not honor him, and one day I'll get that call and I'm not sure how I'll handle the finality of the end of honoring my father while he is alive.

I feel like I'm not sure how to walk the line where one side is honoring your mother and father, and the other side is living the life God has planned for you. I'm not sure how to keep the Commandments and yet "be."

As for honoring my mother...well...for some reason that isn't as much of a struggle as it is a daily struggle. Does that makes sense? I somehow have made peace that I won't always honor her like I should, yet catch myself every day looking to honor her, and her acknowledgement that she feels honored at 74 years of experience by my meager 34 years of life experiences and choices. And boy, has she lived it all. Childhood poverty while "rich" in a big family, thirteen years of marriage and economic stability and two beautiful children before becoming a young widow. Two years of stressful living before remarrying an older fifty-something man ready to be the most caring husband and step-father on the planet. Then having one more child - a daughter, together at age 40 and  55 thereabouts, when it was very uncommon and unpopular. Together they have striven to give their children the best this life can offer and making sure we credited God for that life.

I want to honor her and have her be my cheerleader at the same time. She channels a very "Norman Vincent Peale"  Christianity with seemingly deep faith and the tenacity to stay positive which has made her the stellar double knee replacement patient, eye surgery patient, frequent neck epidurals patient to relieve pain and stay active, cortisone shots, etc, woman and mother  to be present and active for her family. She does it for us. Yet, I feel so inadequate in my thirty-something-ness to her life experiences. I feel I don't bring her enough honor with my life, especially when I have her gift of "positive thinking" from her example.She grew up very protestant before converting, and one gift of that protestantism is encouraging each of us to have that 'personal relationship with Jesus Christ' that my father gently guided into a personal relationship and a intense love of the Eucharist (something I still have, while my siblings have taken their various personal journeys in their faith and their personal walk with God).

At the same time, I am more comfortable paving my own way and letting her know I'm paving my own way than I am my father - yet I feel so selfish in being so forthright in my honesty with her. At the end of the day, I feel so conflicted about not honoring her with that honesty. Also, I pull away as well - and I feel so dishonorable in that. So many of my friends talk about a close relationship with their mothers, and I'm envious. I feel such pressure to bridge the gap while she is still alive. I feel ages 34 and 74 have this generation gap that can be so huge, so divisive (at least in our relationship). I should be doing better with that gap than I do. My 46 year old sister does such a great job with my mom in terms of finding balance (she struggles too)!  I so want to share every aspect of my life with my mom and get her support and approval, as does my sister. I wish I could shoulder her honesty she always has with me currently (and honesty is a rare quality in today's world) and run with it.

I feel like our September failures  set me back years of family honor, and in living the Fifth Commandment. And honestly, I feel that the direction my life has gone since college has not honored my mother and father the way they perceive honor and deserve for all they have given to me.

I feel both of my parents equally influenced the deep faith that I have - both in its Catholicity, and it's spirituality.  I owe them so much, and desire to honor them so much. Yet I feel and discern that I have not lived Commandment # 5 very honorably in my thirty-four years on this earth. Again, the line between honor and living the life God wrote for me is confusing.

Ironically, I feel my parents have done a good job of preparing me for my crosses. Calah writes in her post about her father in law that reminded me more about my mother, but the latter about both of my parents:

...I listened, and nodded at the appropriate moments, but what I was really thinking was, "Man, my father-in-law is the biggest joy-killer on the planet. He could take the whitest cloud in the sky and find a threatening darkness in it.

 I've thought that about my father-in-law for a long time. There is no success in our lives that he lets pass without pointing out the danger therein; but likewise, there is never a failure or a tragedy that he can't find the grace in. I've always taken the latter for granted while being annoyed and rankled by the former. "Why can't he just let us be happy for five minutes?" I grumbled bitterly to the Ogre when we got a long talk on the dangers of Catholic higher education after getting a job at Ave Maria. "He ruins everything!"...

He doesn't rain all over our parades on purpose. He doesn't try to squash all our happiness on principle. He just knows that suffering is real and unavoidable, and he wants us to know it too, so we won't be caught off-guard and unaware when it comes for us.

What an honorable thing to say about her father in law. What humble wisdom she has learned, and in turn, given honor to her father in law by sharing that truth. I wish I could walk the line between "can't ___ let me be happy for five minutes" and knowing that my mother or both parents just want to remind me that suffering in this life is unavoidable and they don't want me caught off-guard and unaware for those moments. They both have lived long lives and suffered greatly. I know they want to protect me. I am so grateful for that.

But then I contemplate another section of Calah's post:

Converting cost me a bond with my parents and brothers and sister that I will most likely never get back. Converting put a rift between my family and the family that raised me. Converting cost me friends. Conversion requires sacrifice and suffering, no matter what, no matter who you are or where you come from. 

I have AMAZING parents. They have done so much for me, and it is utterly apparent it is out of incredible love for me. I have never doubted their love for me. I hope they don't doubt mine.  I look at my life and see their sacrifice and love and am utterly grateful for the parents God gave me. I owe them so much. I want to thank them in every breath I exhale. Yet, I struggle following the call in my heart to perhaps their call in their heart. Does that make sense?

I haven't lived a very rosy adult life - but I've lived it with a 'rosey outlook on life' thanks be to God. I'm well aware that this is not heaven and I have a cross to carry - many crosses in fact. I also know I'm not alone in carrying those crosses. I feel I have lived my life aware that the other worldly, non Eden shoe will drop (and surprised by dropping for sure last September that I was not aware of happening, yet did not stumble over. I walked as high and tall as I could thanks to the Trinity and the Body of Christ in my family and friends). I'm not even sure if those words by Calah are speaking to me correctly, directly, or what. I need to pray on them more - RE: the cost of living for God. I'm not sure if that is what I'm doing or feeling in my thirty-fourth year. But I just don't feel very honorable in any case. Sigh.

God gave me the parents I have - what a gift they are. How amazing they are, especially at the ages they are. I desperately want to honor them with every breath.

I just pray I have more time to figure it out, honorably.

P,S. PLEASE pray for Leah, who inspired Calah's post originally. Pray for her huge step from Atheism to Christianity!!! Also, for her RCIA journey in the Catholic faith. Bless you Leah, and we are behind you and praying for you!!!