I had wonderful older relatives - Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles - who brought joy and care into my life. I miss them very much and took every opportunity while they were alive to let them know how much they meant to me.
My parents, who are divorced for many years and getting closer to death due to advanced age, seem to fear death.
I am sure the reason is because they have treated their children with such a lack of regard. They are both going all out in a sympathy bid VERY late in life.
This is the reason they fear death. Because they were unkind to their children their whole lives.
It is nice to be charitable and offer consolation to people as they age. However they cannot “take back” a lifetime of ill will that has left a deep impression on their family.
Those who are kind leave a deep impression of kindness. They receive genuine care and concern later in life and they do not fear their life has been “worthless”.
Those who have been selfish and unkind often reflect in the 11th hour that “no one cares”. That is because they have created that legacy themselves.
I will help and do what I can because I try to be a decent person, and because mom is still a human being and deserves good, decent care, but I do it with limits and detachment to a degree, and have learned that I have to set boundaries or the more and more she will demand.
You're right that the selfishness and lack of close relationships in the end is sometimes a self-created legacy. Like the old saying goes, "To have friends, you have to be a friend." Same goes with loving relationships of any kind.
I reflect on my life vs. my mom's, and having this kind of responsibility when she never did for her own parents, and one positive effect I can say that it's had on me, for all the difficulty, is that it's made me a stronger person.
And yet, and yet ... we struggle with the prospect of having to yield everything we are, or own, or could ever have owned, to parents who never nurtured us when we were young.
In this day and age, thanks to modern medicine, that yielding can go on for the rest of our lives. Then, after we've perished? Who will look after them? And, if we survived their need ... surely, no one will look after us.
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says something to the effect that the "good" son will inherit everything that belongs to the father.
In dysfunctional families I've seen and been part of, the prodigal sons and daughters reap both the celebration as well as the years of hard work of their sibling(s) . Essentially the parents are prodigal as well as their offspring, as the hard working responsible sibs look on in exhausted horror. I think the resentment is well founded, nothing wrong with the emotion except that it only hurts the bearer. The prodigal family members don't care, they are too busy enjoying themselves.
The Biblical father is celebrating his son's safe return. In these modern narcissistic families, the parasitical family members are celebrating the benefits obtained by the hard work of the loyal members ---foolishly hoping to enjoy a reciprocal relationship one day. Instead they become unpaid personal servants and often
have nothing to show for it but exhaustion and harassment.
parents who are absolutely revered by their families and associates. Sure there's
a scapegoat or two who takes all the heat, but everyone else seems to happy and
healthy. At least on the surface.
I would argue that those who get roped into caring for selfish people, be it
parents, spouse, or even adult children, who do not reciprocate, are also very
much in danger of leading meaningless lives.
And just to play devil's advocate, I've known some lovely people who are mistreated and neglected by their kids. And yes I've known both sides of the
story. Nice people can raise selfish kids, just as selfish parents can raise nice
kids. So I guess what I'm trying to say it's not always so black and white.
What I realize more and more is just how precious family really is, and how
we are meant to be in supportive, reciprocal relationships. Anything other
is unhealthy.
You remind me of something that happened today. I was waiting for a cab and there was this woman sitting against a wall with the usual sign. "Homeless, can you spare any change" She looked pretty hard and hard done by and I debated within myself whether to give her anything. Finally I just did it. I handed her a five dollar bill and she just grabbed it and said "thank-you" in a really ungrateful voice. Didn't even look at me. When I drove off in the cab I thought to myself. Wow, not very grateful. But then I thought. Well, it was -1 out and who am I to judge. My Mom used to say, do the right thing and don't worry about who is grateful or how people react.
As far as creating legacies........hmmm, I don't know. We are all God's children and only he knows where our hearts lay. Sometimes the hardest people to love are the ones who need it the most. Yeah, ill will does sometimes beget ill will but there is a bigger picture out there that we know nothing about.