Human Nature

We people really do get our lines crossed at times. We hurt each other because we put commitments before people, or fail to understand the importance of the work being done that puts commitment before relationships.

For 30 years I have chaired family squabbles on a daily basis, often three or more, as I watch families tearing each other apart over the reading of the Will or the imposition of Intestacy; acted as the go-between for siblings sitting either side of me just feet away from each other; grown men and women who have somehow allowed a lifetime of resentment to build up and then threaten to destroy everything.

Given the extreme exceptions that we see on the media reports, the vast majority of us should always remember to honour, love and respect our parents. Already they have lived a lifetime before we've even started; and it is they who have put us on the starting block. They have made sacrifices that all too often we learn of only after they also have departed.

Many a time I have received the question from children who are suddenly bereft - "I never knew that Mum or Dad had done this. They never said. I never realised they'd suffered this trauma."

Come on! Look beyond our own immediate world view and look back over the years and decades. Discover who we are by looking up our history; not by genealogy, though that certainly is to be commended, but by asking questions direct. Has it ever occurred that Grandma at 85, looking at the beautiful photograph of herself at 25 in fact feels absolutely no different inwardly to the day that photographer attended the house or, if it could be afforded, she attended the studio?

Let us think beyond our own immediate world. Let us think beyond ourselves and be thankful that we breathe the air and live the life and freedom that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents have done so at a cost that most of us will never have to pay.

Let our grandchildren know these things. It is never too late to teach them or to gently remind them.

Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL
10 June 2011