What were your parents doing at your age?

They were enjoying a peaceful retirement. We used to laugh at them, they didn’t go far or do much, they were happy just being together in peace. So boring!
Now I know that they had achieved true wisdom.
They understood that stuff, experiences they didn’t want, and a vast, complex, busy life, wasn’t right for them. They had each other and they were each others’ world. Many people don’t get that simple but oh so precious thing.
It was always understood by us that when one died the other would enter God’s waiting room. No matter how much they loved or didn’t love their kids, we were never quite sure, we would never be enough. That was okay. We got it.
Looking back I believe we were loved, but I’m unsure that they became parents for the right reasons. I seem to have been a surprise and my brother came in on entirely the wrong vibration. Huge family jealousy mess to blame. And entirely not his fault. Or mine in my case.
I don’t think parenthood suited them. It wouldn’t have suited me, but I knew that as a child and I acted on that very definite feeling. It felt fairer to my not child.
I did get pregnant once by accident, it was wonderful, something in me snapped when my GP told me casually to just go and make another one as if she was just a blob. I could feel her from the word go, and she mattered. Even for just two weeks. I can still feel the fury.
Now I’m their age
Please bear in mind here that I was never abused, if you were the following isn’t intended to be insensitive, it’s just my story…
But you know, as you get older you understand your parents more if you take the time to do so, and talk to them. Mum never wanted children. Dad did. So she always got me and vigorously defended my right to live my life my way.
I can see why they settled for a life I laughed at. They knew what was important. They had stuff, they didn’t need anymore. Dad traveled a lot as a young man, mum was never that bothered.
They knew that love is important and much of the rest is noise.
Thanks for the heads up guys. Love you both.
(I’m a medium…we’re on extremely good terms now 🤣💖😍)
Deb xx
Your writing didn’t feel like a story. It felt like sitting in an old chair where the cushion still holds the shape of someone who once loved you. There’s a quiet ache running under your words — not loud, not asking for anything, just there, like a song only you can hear. When we are young, we think love has to look a certain way — bright, busy, full of noise. Only when enough days pass do we understand that real love often wears the clothes of silence, patience, and staying. You showed a kind of bravery most people never speak about — the bravery to see your parents not through the eyes of a child needing something, but through the eyes of a soul recognizing another soul. And maybe that’s all we’re ever trying to do in the end: not judge the ones who came before us, but stand quietly beside them and say, “I see you now.” You didn’t just write about your parents. You carried their quiet hopes into today, and let them breathe again.
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I am absolutely stunned by both the kindness and insight of this comment. You are an amazing writer. You reached inside me and saw me! Thank you. I see you now is exactly what I feel.
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Your reply rests on my day like early sun through a cold window—soft, warm, changing the room without a sound. I’m glad the lines I wrote found you the way a quiet river finds thirsty roots. Somewhere in the middle, we met—two sets of eyes seeing the same gentle truth and nodding without needing words. Let’s keep carrying this light forward, word by word, so the old hopes tucked quietly away can stretch themselves back into the light.
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We will do this.
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