Hospital Window
A great note for all to read it will take just 37 seconds to read this and change your thinking

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.

Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.
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Your House As Seen By

Yourself…

Your Lender…

Your Buyer…

Your Appraiser…

Your Tax Assessor…

Is there a magic cutoff period when offspring become accountable for their own actions?  Is there a wonderful moment when parents can become detached spectators in the lives of their children and shrug, “It’s their life,” and feel nothing?

When I was in my twenties, I stood in a hospital corridor waiting for doctors to put a few stitches in my daughter’s head.  I asked, “When do you stop worrying? The nurse said, "When they get out of the accident stage.”  My Dad just smiled faintly and said nothing.

When I was in my thirties, I sat on a little chair in a classroom and heard how one of my children talked incessantly, disrupted the class, and was headed for a career making license plates.  As if to read my mind, a teacher said, “Don’t worry, they all go through this stage and then you can sit back, relax and enjoy them.”  My dad just smiled faintly and said nothing. 

When I was in my forties, I spent a lifetime waiting for the phone to ring, the cars to come home, the front door to open.  A friend said, “They’re trying to find themselves.  Don’t worry, in a few years, you can stop worrying.  They’ll be adults.”  My dad just smiled faintly and said nothing.

By the time I was 50, I was sick and tired of being vulnerable.  I was still worrying over my children, but there was a new wrinkle.  There was nothing I could do about it.  My Dad just smiled faintly and said nothing.  I continued to anguish over their failures, be tormented by their frustrations and absorbed in their disappointments.

My friends said that when my kids got married I could stop worrying and lead my own life.  I wanted to believe that, but I was haunted by my Dad’s warm smile and his occasional, “You look pale.  Are you all right?  Call me the minute you get home.  Are you depressed about something?

Can it be that parents are sentenced to a lifetime of worry?  Is concern for one another handed down like a torch to blaze the trail of human frailties and the fears of the unknown?  Is concern a curse, or is it a virtue that elevates us to the highest form of life?

One of my children became quite irritable recently, saying to me, “Where were you?  I’ve been calling for 3 days, and no one answered.  I was worried.”  I smiled a warm smile.  The torch has been passed.