I was taught to Respect my Elders.
This is not a teaching that I live by often.
My truth is that I’m sometimes enraged at my elders, the living ones at least.
Angry at the 80-year old who behaves like they are 20, expecting respect simply because they were born earlier that I was.
Frustrated & upset at the lack of interest in self-reflection of decades lived, the lack of care of body-soul-mind-spirit connection and the cowardice of not facing fears around illness, aging and death.
I cannot comprehend the fear of aging and death that is talked about so often, but without moments spent in contemplation creation and life cycles.
In sitting with this, I realize that this is the outcome of a disconnection in values between my elders and I.
What I want to learn, or wish I learned from them was how to live, age and die well, how to make peace with the decisions made in life, how to release regrets, how to allow and accept others especially for their differences, how to deepen connections and finally, how to surrender with grace to end of physical life, joyfully in gratitude.
Instead, what is shoved down my throat is judgement and comparison and a great discomfort with what is changing or what is different.
I hear often from my elders that they want to impart their wisdom. I can understand this, because there is a legacy and an intimacy that comes from moments like that. I would want that too.
I have absolutely felt bad about my anger and the moments I’ve been impatient and argumentative, when an elderly family member is talking at me, telling me how I should be like other people.
When I finally sat with my anger about not being accepted, I realized that I too, did not accept them and their choices and journey. Just like they wanted me to be different so that it would be comfortable for them, so too, I wanted them to different, so that I had more points of connection with them, and felt supported by family.
And so, for years, I was in a dance of non-acceptance and the repressed and outward arguments that came from this place.
Coming to acceptance or resolution with this doesn’t take one thing. And depending on the fabric of the family unit, it comes through in many different ways and many different levels.
The one thing I did start to do was use these judgemental moments as practical reminders to practice the Golden Rule. The ‘do unto others…’ one.
If I wanted to be accepted for who I am, then I why not rise and expand to accept the soul-choice and journey of another, especially when it’s so different from my own.
This continues to be a place of work for me, but one of the greatest gifts it led me to was to understand how legacies are built – one experience and memory at a time, in actions and words, in responses instead of reactions, and in the practice of love.
For this and more, I thank my Elders, for being the perfection they are, for showing up in the specific ways that they do, so that I can be more of who I am.