Mom and Dad (God Moments)

That sure sounds strange – Mom and Dad.  Somewhere before that age when a boy becomes a man, they became Esther and Chester to me.  The circumstances of that transition are entirely unknown to me now.  But one day, I began calling them by their given names and that habit pretty much defined our relationship for the next 40 plus years.

Now, I have never fathered a child.  The Good Lord saw the wisdom of terminating my blood line with me.   So, I admit to a bias of ignorance with what I’m about to say.  But I find it bemusing when a newborn enters the room, and someone (usually female – not that anyone’s counting) inevitably gushes, “Oh, what a blessing!”  Maybe so.  But to my way of thinking, that is just plain backwards.  It is the parents who provide the blessing and you never hear anyone fawn poetic on their behalf.

In my heart I know that Mom and Dad weren’t perfect in any respect, much less parenting.  Maybe I know that all too well.  Because in my weaker moments, blame for my failures is slyly transferred to their ledger.  But that says so much more about me than them.

Nonetheless, not only did I love them as parents, I liked them as people.  I wish I had known them when they were young and vibrant.

When the toll booth that we call life hadn’t yet fully taxed them physically.  Something tells me that if our ages could somehow meet in the middle, we’d hang out together.  But that was never part of God’s design.  Instead, my mind is limited to memories of them in their later years. 

A little bit bent-over.  A little bit shaky.  But always supporting each other both physically and spiritually even until death do them part – and beyond.  Perhaps that is the best reflection of all.    

What a joy it would be sit down with Mom and Dad today, right now, and talk about…..life.  To try and see the world through their prism – images that were and remain to be important to them.  But lost upon me in that day because life simply got in the way.  So many questions remain unanswered.  But yet those questions will morph once again in the light of a new day.

I simply must trust that their wisdom imparted upon me the important stuff that God would have me to know.  And so it was.  Because not only did they conceive me physically but it was their love and sacrifice, their very lives, that first witnessed to me the love of God and planted the seeds of faith in my soul.  Their continual prayers fortified me against the world.

Yes, Mom and Dad are the blessing.         

               

Esther and Chester are still with me – profoundly.  And it makes me smile.  But for unknown reasons that I strain to understand, when they died, they reverted to Mom and Dad.  

Link to:  Generations (Psalms and Prayers)