The Gifts Of A Parent: The Person Your Teen Will Become

Last week I visited my 98 year old aunt and uncle who now live in Florida. Not only were they very much alive and well, but that they still have each other, and clearly are still so much in love is remarkable! I haven't been a very good niece. It's been at least 20 years since I last saw them. My aunt would call every few years, I would feel terribly guilty that I hadn't called her, and then I'd promise myself I would be better, but then I didn't and I wasn't.

My Aunt GG was my father's youngest sister. My father died when I was 13 and after that we didn't see his side of the family very often. When we did have a visit it was always wonderful and warm, but unfortunately not very regular. They all lived in New York, and my mom was a widowed single working mother and we just didn't get away very much.

As an adult, and now though I loath to say it, an older adult (cue, but Joani you still look so young) I have been thinking a lot about my childhood and who I have become. Apparently doing a life review is an important process of moving into the "twilight years." Having lost my dad at 13, I would often ask myself what would I have been like? Who would I have been if my dad had been with me throughout my life? How would I have turned out differently? Questions that have always plagued me, thinking if I only had a dad......

The yearning to see my Aunt GG and Uncle Freddie I think were rooted in these questions and realizing that they were my last connection to my dad, and the last of a generation,  I suddenly felt this urgency to connect with them.

What a profound and meaningful visit. We talked for many hours about many things. The stories they shared were evident of a life full of meaning and passion. Eventually we came to talk about my dad. And I asked if they would tell me about him. Unfortunately I have been left with few memories of him. I think when one suffers a traumatic and unexpected loss of a beloved parent at a young age, memories get lost. Not only because the loss itself is so painful, but also because as a child and young adolescent you live in the moment and don't know that unknowingly you are absorbing all the life and relationships and experiences that later will become the fabric of who you become.

My Uncle Freddie said to me "Joani, your dad was the most special person I ever knew, and I have known a lot of people." I asked if he could tell me what made him so special. " it is so hard to put into words the quality of the man he was," he said. "He was so compassionate and kind, full of empathy. He was so smart and funny, and when you talked to him you felt like you were the most important person in the world." My Aunt GG said the same. We talked some more and it was time to go. I sat in my car and wept, not out of sadness for the loss and the time I hadn't had with him, but for the understanding that so much of who I am and how I try to live in the world is because I experienced it from him, and unknowingly it had become the very fabric of who I am. I celebrated that the 13 years I had with my dad, during those formative years of childhood, have been a part of me, and lived in me without my even knowing it.

When I returned home, I called my beloved daughter to tell her all that I had experienced. And she brilliantly said: "mom, isn't that what you tell the parents you work with all the time? That what is going on with your teens in the present, may be difficult and uncomfortable, but that the teen years are just a moment in time. You tell them they have already done the major work of parenting in those childhood years, of teaching values and providing them with experiences and love and the meaning of family and relationships. You had those 13 years with your dad, and he is inside you! She is a smart one my daughter!

And that is why I have told you this story of my visit with my 98 year old Aunt GG and Uncle Freddie.  To remind you that what you may be experiencing now with your teen: the fear for their safety, the worry for their future, the expectations not realized, is all part of a much bigger picture. Bring your lens back into wide focus. They need these teen years to experiment and play with all that is inside them; all that you have already given to them; and fit that  together with the personality and temperament they were born with. And through this process they will become a fully integrated adult. That is a tall order!

I am both myself and my mom and my dad. You have already given your teen many gifts, and now it's time to let them play!