"Regard (treat with honor, due obedience, and courtesy) your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God gives you." (The Amplified Bible)

Today is my mother's 91st birthday.  I called her on the phone and sang "Happy Birthday To You".  She laughed and said no one had ever done that for her before.  It has taken me most of my life to realize what an incredible gift my parents are to me.  They have invested the greater portion of their lives in me.  What will the return on their investment be? 

I thank God that my parents have lived into their nineties and kept their health (for the most part.)  Not only is it a blessing of the Lord,  it has allowed us to leave behind the difficult parts of our parent-child relationship and embrace one which is more understanding, forgiving and supportive of one another.  Recognizing that they won't live forever has helped me make the most of these last years with them.  It is difficult to be as old as they are.  Life is constantly changing.  There are days when they feel great and there are other days when they just don't feel quite right.  Life has become an endless calendar page marked with doctors appointments and calling hours.  The last couple of weeks has been especially difficult for them as they lost two dear old friends.  They had been friends with each one of these dear people for more than sixty years.  A lifetime.  There aren't many of the lifetime friends left...only a few remain.  I grieve their losses almost as much as they do...because they are my losses as well.  I have grown up with their friends as part of my life.  Many of their friends parented my childhood friends.

I grew up with many advantages, not the least of which was growing up in a small town.  I went to a 10 room schoolhouse from the first grade to the eighth grade.  There were never more than 30 other kids in my class and we all knew one another.  We knew one another's brothers and sisters, moms and dads.  The world was different then.  High school changed things, because we went to a regional school which was huge by comparison.  It is interesting to note that although all of us made other friends in high school, many of us from the 10 room schoolhouse days have managed to stay in touch over the years.  Most of our parents stayed together, married for the long haul.  Most of us went to college.  Most of us survived the sixties, although we lost a few to the Vietnam War and some to the tradgedies of life...car wrecks, illness etc.  A few weeks ago one of my old friends lost his mom, and we touched base.  It was as if the years were erased and we were just a couple of kids talking about the reality of life and death and change.  Last week two more of my old friends lost their last remaining parent (one a mother and one a father)...and again the reality of my upbringing struck me and the importance of those relationships. 

In today's world relationships are shallow and often temporary.  If you don't like it, you change it.  If it isn't working for you, you move on.  We don't look at longevity as a blessing.  That isn't how I was brought up.

So...in the light of the last few weeks...I have been examining my feelings about life and death and relationship.  I have realized over and over again that I would not trade the way I was raised for anything.