I wish they were here

Subject: I wish they were here.

It's sad but true that as we run our journey through life there are various stages in it when for perfectly good reasons we take our parents for granted.
When we were children they were the focus of our lives, they were our security they sustained us through thick and thin. When as teenagers we discovered we knew it all, we discarded them as much as we could whilst still living under their roof. As we ourselves became married and had children  of our own our own parents were much forgotten as we struggled with our own problems which marriage and children brought.
It's only now when we ourselves are getting older and reaching that stage when we begin to see our own parents in ourselves that we wish they were still around to reconnect with. Age brings with it it's own fears. Illness disability and death have arrived to poke us in the side and remind us that the time ahead is limited. This is not to say that one is disheartened or depressed only that the reality of life's journeys end becomes ever more predictable. Under these circumstances it would be nice to chat about the old days with ones Mom and Dad, to reminisce, to ask those questions which were never asked back then.
I have friends who's mother turns 100 this year and who still seem to sail on and on. I received photos from another friend who's mother was celebrating her 89th. We lost a man who was in his late nineties last year and so aged parents are all around us and whilst ageing often brings difficulties to the children in attempting to look after their  Mom or Dad, sometimes the heartache of dementia or simply having the decision to put them in care when it becomes too much for the family, we should cherish the connection they bring, to everything we have become.
That piece of the jigsaw that is indistinct, our early childhood when we were particularly vulnerable. Those formative years when they struggled to meet your needs especially the needs they thought were their responsibility. Their hopes and fears their delights would be nice to reminisce with them if not only to prove to them that you had made it and it had been all worth while.