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[quote=Anonymous]Ummmm...good question. Both, I think. It becomes too late to take back the relationship we haven't nurtured because we were too involved with ourselves and trying to set ourselves apart while establishing our own family or adulthood. We are all so sure that we aren't going to do things a particular way,namely the  the way it was being done when we were being parented, that we forget that our parents required some nurturing, too. We take too many things personally in trying to do this that we push them away, or become resentful for any number of reasons. For some people, it is all consuming, and for others it's very mild, but still there as an undercurrent. It's a developmental thing- much of it is normal.

After they pass, we go through the tangible remains of their lives in pictures,letters,mementos- connecting them to strong and vague memories and then realize what we are looking at were the lives of two people, not our parents, per se, and realize all the things we didn't realize when they were still alive...some of it very surprising. If we are older when they pass, we realize that we behaved and thought the same way they must have when they were around our age now- disenfranchised.If they die infirmed and quite old, it becomes even more muddled as we try to navigate the myriad of  health needs they have all the while still weighing them from our own perspective and needs. If we are younger when they pass, we become resentful for the time lost to still try and fix things.

Those that maintain a relationship, after all is said and done, realize that these were people with the same fears, needs, thoughts, and actions as everyone else even though all that time we thought they were more one dimensional as our parents. But the largest thing we realize is how quickly life passes by- it is staggeringly short.

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