Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are

Parents are complicated.

When they are alive, they provide their offspring with plenty of challenges to help shape the persons they will become. For those children paying attention, parents can also give life lessons to their descendants after they have gone.

I was organizing some music the other day and came across the above titled song. Growing up with Meatloaf playing as a soundtrack in the background, a Jim Steinman song connects great musical hooks with notable lyrics.

What gave me pause this time was how the premise of the song ringing true on a personal level.

Let me backup…

Where Does This Go?

I was a trusting kid. Naive. I was taught to behave and do as I was told. Questioning authority did not become an option until later.

Dad taught me a number of things over the course of our years together. Most things he shared I wanted to emulate in my own life. Later on, I discovered many teachings I wanted to disregard.

As exemplified in these posts, my Dad was just a guy trying to make his way through life. He raised me as best he knew and was concerned whether I thought well of his efforts.

I have written about our last conversations before. One of the matters discussed was whether I was approving of his efforts in raising us kids.

Talk about role reversal. Dementia had taken away Dad’s protective tough guy exterior to reveal the young boy looking for acceptance – from his own son.

I always, and honestly , reassured him that I knew he had done his best. His response was never enthusiastic, so I am not sure if he believed me.

I did speak truly. While we did not always see eye-to-eye on everything, in this I did think he had done his best.

Added Baggage

Dad liked that I tried to emulate him over the years and attempted to please him whenever possible. It was all part of that preacher’s kid/”good son” package. I was never winning at the game (Dad was tough to please, especially if you were giving him what he asked for) but I always tried to at least score a few points with him.

I suspect he came by creating these unattainable goals honestly from his own father.

My grandfather passed away a year or two before I was born. A World War I veteran of the Somme, raising a son was apparently a painful process.

The long story short, my Dad learned to carry the weight of the world on his own shoulders – whether such responsibilities deserved to be there or not.

I have thought that managing such levels of regret must have been tiresome.

Wrapping Up

When reflecting on the song lyric, I noted the truth of how regret, or the constant looking back, can skew our perception of the present. Memory is notably inaccurate most of the time.

Dad’s carrying of feelings about the past often denied him the joy of the present. I could reassure him that he had done well, but he could never quite take the compliment.

And that is where I will forever agree to disagree with him.

The past is always with us, but it is a corrupted recording. Our strength is in our ability to choose how we respond to these incorrect versions of history. Let a faulty memory that we cannot change determine our present happiness or let go and become who we really are.

There is always a choice.