Life beings....with Mumma and Daddy...

As kids we worship our parents. There is nothing that daddy can't buy and there is no pain that mama cannot kiss away. It’s funny how we go through these ups and downs with them, loving them, hating them, crying with them, crying for them, hugging them, running to them. Mom and Dad could always make everything all right, could transform the darkest night with a warm hug and the most accurate words. Dad's laughter and Mom's pretty smile is the solace of every child and I don't think we ever completely outgrow that.

I thought that we turned into mature adults when we realize our parents are not heroes, that they have feet of clay. That is the time we realize their fallibility, their vulnerability and that they don't own the world. We feel all grown up and big when we understand this.

However we truly become mature when we realize their greatness, their worth and all that they have given us, they who are not heroes but mere mortals like us: trying their best, failing as often if not more than succeeding...trying to mold us after them, taking our resistance for disobedience, breaking their heart over a wrong choice, over words sharply said...cooking lavish dinners, letting us sleep late and yet too shy to say we love you.

I realized that despite of being just ordinary folks they made for me and my sibling a warm nest. None of us come prepared in this world to become parents and no kid comes with a user's manual, they learned on the job and if they made a mistake they broke their lil hearts over it. To be this big person for this little child who looks up to you for every little thing must be an arduous task which no sane person would willingly take if it were not for the sheer love of the child....for the joy and pride that they take in their brood. No child is really as wonderful as his or her parents imagine them to be but they believe in us far more than we ever will.

God bless mine and all the mammas and all the daddies in the world.

- C