I'm going through a life situation that is at times stressing and trying, but that's life. And because of this I've been in more constant contact with my parents for the last couple of years now. And like clockwork, when I call home to Canada they're both inevitably on the phone conversing with me about 'how I'm doing.'

I'm thinking that perhaps my mind was telling me that my parents and my relationship with both of them is not something to be overlooked or taken for granted. Especially since they're now both septuagenarian's and time can be of the essence when one is of that age. No dilly-dallying, just get to the point. Basically.

I realized that I've had an over four-decade long relationship with my two parents and we've all matured and grown up throughout that time. Our needs, wants, desires, expectations, demands, and lives have all changed significantly throughout that time. Especially considering my aging into my own parenthood and them entering their own grandparent hood more than two decades ago through the birth of two of my siblings' children.

My relationship with my parents started out based fully on need. I needed them to survive. I was young and they had the means to provide for my needs as I grew up.

But what I learned as I became more self-aware during my teenage and young adult years was that I was not too particularly fond of the 'needs' that they had made and kept trying to make a part of my existence. This is what all parents do, myself included, however the issues start to arise when the water gets muddied up as to what is a need and what is a demand.

Of course, with me being the typical burgeoning adult I knew what was best for me and what my world was becoming. After all, I was a 'teenager'. And doesn't the world revolve around teenagers the world over?

Facetiousness aside, I broke loose from my parents physical grip as fast as I could when I was financially able to. I went to university. In another city.

This began my journey to cut the umbilical cord: but as I've learned it is never truly severed. Except physically at birth.

Parents are the role models we have when we grow up. Birth parents, foster parents, step parents, grand parents, fantasy parents. All adult figures that are involved in our lives throughout our development over time are the persons that we model our-selves after whether we're aware of it or not.

In some cases we make good choices who we model after and in some cases we make not so good choices, or in fact aren't even given a choice whatsoever.

There was a time that I thought that my parents were a pretty bad choice that I was presented with. They had their vices, they had their idiosyncrasies and their quirks, and their lifestyle choices which of course were completely unacceptable to my young developing mind that somehow thought that it just knew better.

But throughout the years of growth and my maturity and personal entry into adulthood alongside my parents I too learned that a parent is a human being. And that is what makes this perfect relationship so imperfect.

There was a time that I was very angry at my parents for the choices and decisions they made and forced upon me through my existence into their lives and having to co-habit the same household with the rest of my family. After all, these weren't choices that I had any say in since I was a child: so I did have my compelling reasons for being angry at them. Or so I thought.

But what turned everything around for me was my realization that my parents may have been the imperfect set of parents to me but that is no reason to hold the relationship they tried to carve out with me against them.

They, like all of us, myself as a parent included, do our best when we become parents. When we, through choice usually, become responsible for one or several other human beings we understand that this is what we want at the time - to be a parent. But we don't understand that we are now becoming the upline to that human. That soul-mirror for that human. We are what carves that soul or destroys it through our complete imperfection.

There was a time that I thought I had every reason on this green Earth to hold this relationship my parents brought me into through my entrance on this planet against them. But my realization that they were doing the best they had with what they themselves had been given was what changed it all for me.

My parents did what they did because they honestly believed it was best for me and my future. I know this unwaveringly and unequivocably because I'm doing the same with my young children. Are many of my current parenting decisions anywhere near close to what my parents chose with me in certain areas? Not by a long shot.

Are many of my current parenting choices in sync with certain values my parents instilled in me through their relationship to-date with me? You bet.

You see, parents love their children no matter what the parent is forced to do in the best interest of the child. I know this for a fact now that I have relationships of this type. There is a special bond that is forged when a human being comes into relationship with a child. A bond that is not even taken away by death as this bond lives on in the child, no matter how old that 'child' becomes.

So what am I espousing here? I love my parents. I know my parents love me. We don't agree on everything because we are human, because we are separate beings on this plane. But we still have this relationship that has been forged and strengthened over time into a solid loving, caring, and thought-filled tie that not even time will break.

I love you Ma. I love you Dad. I can say that I appreciate everything that you have brought into my life. Yes, everything. The so-called good. And the so-called bad.

Why? Because my life is the way it is because of the way it was. For a time this included when I was under your care but nevertheless this contributed to resulting in me becoming who I am now. And even though I may have struggles with my personal journey along this path I still understand that the two of you were the beginning of that journey and you started carving it out before I was even born into your arms.

I am a parent now too. And I understand that I'm am going to be the parent to whom someday my boys will be holding my proverbial 'feet to the fire', regardless of the decisions I make or don't make about their well-being. I may have the best intentions for them at all times and only want the best outcomes for all of them as they grow into manhood but that still won't negate the fact that they won't be holding those choices and decisions against me someday when they realize that my choices at times conflicted with their own desires as humans.

I know that someday they may hold me to the same extreme level of scrutiny that I once held the two of you. I know that they may not at the time be able to understand why it was that I made the choices and decisions that I did, especially when these choices and decisions involved them.

But I can only hope that I am able to stick around here long enough, like the two of you have so that they are able to grow into adulthood enough and to see that I too was an imperfect human being but that this doesn't take away that I only wanted what was best for them and that I did the best I could with what I was given. Hopefully they too will understand that this is not an excuse, just the truth.

I matured enough to see it a number of years ago about the two of you. And you're here now reading this writing of mine hopefully understanding that I truly understand why the three of us relate as we do.

I just hope that one day, as a parent, I am able to be given the same understanding from my boys that I was able to give to you for a fair number of years now.

Thank you for 'sticking around' as long as you have. Thank you for staying together as a parental unit as long as you have. Thank you for being my parents and for the existence you brought me into.

Thank you for making me into the person that I have become, and even at times try to forget about. Why? Because it's all good regardless.

Again... you contributed to making me the man I am now.

Thank you Ma. Thank you Dad.

I love you both.

Written by Andre Best
President, Ultimate Results, Inc.
http://www.andrebest.com
'Learn About Life From Another Perspective'

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* P.S. HAPPY 71ST BIRTHDAY MA! *