Life's Mysteries

When I was young, we learned that with age comes wisdom. Well, I have lived long enough to realize a bit of the truth about that old adage. People used to always tell me when I was young, enjoy your youth while you can, never knowing what that meant, as we always want to be older and wiser, and do all the things that older people do...til too late, when we are old, and wake up to realize that the older folks were not what we really wanted to be after all...that must be pure wisdom. For the past few days, my childhood has been swimming around in my head at various times, meaning that I am remembering things about my mom or my dad, or some other relative, that I had long since buried and forgotten. I am seeing them as I saw them when a child, but now with the wisdom of old age, a bit better able to understand them when they pulled the various stunts that they did. I think that I am better able to evaluate and judge them now after they are gone than I had been when they were alive and well. We do forget things daily about the previous days, weeks, months, and years...but some incidents will return to plague us. I end up remembering why I would be so angry, disappointed, or hurt by something that one or the other of my parents had done when I was a child. I now look at it, and see the years since, and am able to better evaluate it and forgive it...if forgiveness is what is warranted. When I was a kid, money was everything We didn't have enough of it. We couldn't do this, we couldn't do that, because it all cost too much money. I never learned to play an instrument, except a tonette, which had been given to us free, and a piano, which my grandmother and mother both had had in their homes. But I was self taught...took two days or maybe just one of piano lessons, and said that is enough for me. Piano lessons means having a teacher who really makes you love what you are doing, or else, it just won't get done. My grandmother taught me the basics of handwriting, of playing the piano, and many other things, because she did take the time to spend with us. My mother had to work, and had no time to spend with either of us for anything. Although, she and my dad would go to all my brother's football games. So I think about them now that they are gone. I wonder where they went to in the world of spirit. My dad did not believe in the after life, thinks that when it is over, it is over, and my mother tended to believe and hope in Christianity, and believed as I do, in a smattering of a lot of things, reincarnation, Jesus, Buddha, and every other cockamamy cult group that offers something to the world. Eventually, after studying all the theories about life, religion, and cult groups, one arrives at one's own decisions and says the heck with all of them. I have the truth, and I know what it is, so don't try to sell me your stuff. So I am alternating between being one minute loving my parents and the next minute, angry and mad at them, as well, for believe it or not, it is our parents who give us the life we have, and who then help us to attain some useful lifestyle while dwelling on the face of the earth. My parents were far from perfect but they never let me forget that they had paid for my education, that they had provided for me, and that I should realize that they had loved me or they would not have done that. I in turn gave to them, but this outlet of self expression is not about what I have done for them but rather how I am coping with their death now, and remembering things and tidbits of the past. Mushroom hunting was one of those things. Ohio City Pride came up with a picture of morels today which made me remember going mushroom hunting in the woods in Ohio. I loved Morels...I wish I had a bushel. Ohio and Michigan have the best in the world as I remember...My mom and dad could find them so easily while my brother and I just fooled around looking at rotty old treetrunks. So Mom and Dad, whereever you are, yes, I miss you, and think of you all the time...thanks for giving me a childhood, good when it was hunting mushrooms.