Coincidences

      My parent's families couldn't be more different. . . . my father's parents were both doctors and my mother's parents were academics. My mom's parents were very social and prominent in their community while my dad's parents kept a somewhat lower profile, and pretty much immersed themselves in the medical world.

   Yet, they both shared an amazing parallel. Both sets of parents had their adult children fall ill, and return to their home, and live with them. 

    Obviously, this is not what might fall under a "happy coincidence."

    But I can't help but wonder if they had compassion for each other? Each one dealing with their own individual set of impossible circumstances yet still managing to hold it all with grace. Each being faced with an unbearable task, yet quietly forging on.

   It's hard to know. I know there was a civility between the families. I also know my mother's parents weren't exactly feeling all the warm fuzzies towards my dad's parents, or even my dad for that matter.  Since my mother had fallen ill, and my father couldn't manage my mother and the four kids, he had fallen out of favor.  

And that's putting it mildly.

He was actually the reason she was back in her childhood home.

Were they aware of these commonalities?

Did they see them?

It's made me very open to so many different types of familial circumstances as an adult. It's also given me another lens to look through in parenting.

Mostly, it's given me empathy to other parents who are in similar situations.  

I know what they are going through.

** This post really resonated with me after the recent terrible tragedy in the Reiner family.