As I crossed over the big 50 (seems only last year) I found myself reflecting often about friends and family.  Where are they in my life as to issues of my heart?  My family is a confusing bunch.  Do family issues take up as much time during your waking hours as they do my slumberless moments?  My sons are the only ones who will speak to me, and only with short nondescriptive answers that offer very little real information.  How did they learn this form of communication?  Not from me, I assure you.  I blurt out just about anything.  And my family, do you think they will ever figure out that circumstances in the past as they were, and the information I possessed at the time could ever be forgotten by them or even forgiven.  Nosiree!  Seems to me that mothers are less likely to be forgiven than the hero worshipped absentee father.  The imagined father fantasy is stronger in an adult child's mind than the reality of the present, albeit scarred and bloodied mother.  I am told that time and maturity can heal these emotional and mental injuries.

But when it comes to friends, forgiveness is given freely even if they really know how cantankerous I really am in the morning without my staring time and coffee.  They still hug me and let me know that I am loved.  Even after I stood on my pulpit or soapbox, I am accepted as a necessary balance in this realities of life.  What could my family learn from my loving friends?  I wonder if the family will see the caring and compassion I carry in my heart for the unjustly treated, or the unfairly judged whether we are talking politics, religion, sexuality, theatre.  It doesn't matter what we talk about...I have an opinion.  But I am harmless and loving...when will my family see me more in this way?