Young Child

Another thing that has hit me lately, is that, and I have no gentle way of putting this, but, well as I get older, so do my parents, and they won't be around forever.

Maybe your parents are older than mine.  Maybe a lot older.  What I mean to say is that I am finally starting to realize how much I need to grow before I ever become a real man in this world, and I might have to do some of that without any help from my parents, and that scares me quite a bit.

I have one grandparent left, my mother's father, and I don't think he is going to be around much longer.  He's a great guy, and I'll miss him, so it's not like I'm waiting for it to happen.  But every time I visit him he is a bit skinnier and, well, I don't know what else.  A bit less interested in anything at all.  Mostly when we get together, he starts to talk about spiritual things right away, and it's sometimes the same things he said last time.  I don't know.  I hope he wants to stick around a bit longer, and I will do my best to be with him when I can until he does go.  Maybe I'm focused on mortality a bit too much lately.

I really want to be there for my parents when things get hard, but I can hardly take care of myself.  I wish I could support them financially, and move them close by, and have them babysit my kids while my wife and I go out somewhere for the evening.  Wish that I could help my dad retire so that he could relax and we could go golfing every couple of weekends.  But it will be many years before there is even a small chance of any of this happening.  I won't be married for a while if at all, and the idea of me making substantial money in the next 15 years is laughable.  Not that I care about the money.  No, the point is, I am constantly worried about being so far behind in life that I won't be there for my parents and they won't be there for me for a lot of my life still to come.


Maybe, whilst in transition, I could spend a concentrated amount of time with them this next year.  Stay with them, work on their house, watch movies with them, allow them to tell me about some girl I've never met that would make a good girlfriend for me, the works.



I would like that a lot.  They're pretty great parents.