Wisdom from the Bowling Green... Or Someplace

I was out today on my way to get groceries (that is a story in itself... I have come to believe that you can define a person and the life they live solely by what is in their grocery cart... Mine is the definitive single-gal assortment... cocktail mixes, olives, microwavable dinners and snacks. Done.) when I passed my local tennis club which, on Sundays, is transformed to lawn bowling central.

And what I have noticed about lawn bowlers (I'm sorry for the upcoming stereotyping and welcome anyone who would like to reeducate me) is that they are all of a particular age bracket about a generation past my own. The sight of them all, about twenty or so, smartly dressed in their whites, made me miss my parents.

Not that my parents were lawn bowlers... Just the thought of that makes me laugh. No, far from it. But what I do miss is that parent/child relationship that, even when a dysfunctional one as mine was still for me provided a steady constant of insightful and wise life commentary.

I have now lived almost eight years with out my mother and more of my life has been spent without the support of my father than with it. And there are occasions, like today, where I deeply miss the opportunity to call them up, visit, listen to their stories and apply the lessons they had learned to my own experiences. I miss knowing that there is someone out there who knows me so intimately well that I don't have to explain why I am approaching things in the way I am and with that knowledge, can provide insight into what about me is leading me down this path.

Parents or grandparents (again, which I have none) provide that element of support and wisdom and guidance that cannot be replicated or replaced. Their opinions are sometimes hard to hear because, I think, in having the breadth of knowledge of your existence that only parents and grandparents can have, they are generally bang on in their assessments while at the same time having the boldness that age provides them in really not caring how delicately (translate not at all) they frame their thoughts. They are truth stripped naked. Take it or leave it. But even in their most harsh of criticism is the core, the seed of love from which the desire to help has sprouted.

And that is what I miss. As a parent and a friend and a co-worker I find myself often in the position of providing whatever wisdom (don't take that too literally) I have gained to offer alternatives for individuals seeking help. In taking on a role of supporter there always, at some point or other, comes a time when that the person giving support needs some as well.

Maybe I'll join a lawn bowling league.

Quit laughing.... It could happen.