There are no words to describe how much I miss her. One of the places where the rubber hits the road, so to speak, when one's parents are deceased, is not being able to share one's children with them. There are so many anecdotes I want to tell my mom and dad that would make them laugh or cry. Other times I would love to know what their thoughts and experiences were in different situations. When we grow up, we can finally appreciate what difficulties our parents suffered in raising us.
Life turns full circle.
Ideally by then, parents and children should be able to relate on the same level. When I think about my parents now, it seems that most of the painful memories tend to settle on the bottom like silt in a pond. The happy memories outshine everything else. I am fortunate to have been raised in a home with a lot of affection and laughter. We were very expressive in both a positive and negative sense.