I have no spit!!!!!!!!!

Dennis Thompson
From facebook

I still get a laugh when I remember this line by Richard Dryfus in the original Jaws movie. It takes place when he is getting into the Shark Cage in hopes of seeing just how big Jaws really is. The spit he would have used is for the goggles so they stay unfogged when he puts them on. Apparently it was an old scuba divers trick. Don't know, I dont have experience in this area, but it always stuck with me as much as the line of "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"

Today I am thinking of how all of my friends seem to have stuff going on in their lives. Everyone does. Last night I happened to watch Dr Phil. I havent done that in a long time. He had a family on that was a follow up from 5 years ago when the oldest daughter who was 15 at the time had had a baby. Now she is 20 and has two children. One is still a toddler and the other lives with the grandparents. The girl, Alexandria has a husband in prison and chose to live with another guy. In chosing to live with a man she gave up keeping the older child. Yes it is even a greater mess as drugs are involved....the list goes on and on. It is ugly.

I have a friend in Cincinatti that has two daughters and a son, the son being in the military. She is nearing 50 years old and has spent thousands of dollars bailing her two daughters out of financial woe. In one case the daughter has a 10 year old with special needs since he is deaf. Six grand children between the two girls. The oldest daughter has a job, as this Lady lives in a house with the older daughter and her son. Her two daughters and son are 24-28 years old.

She loves her kids, but she is caught in a trap of they all seem to lean on her for things to survive. I have known her for over ten years. We got to meet for a cup of coffee when I went up to my class reunion in August of this year. She has since reminded me that I should have put her in a suitcase and taken her awy from all of the craziness. We laugh at it, but when a person thinks about it, what do you do when your grandchildren are not being cared for properly. Can you just sit by?

I try and look back and remember how many of my friends that I knew were not responsible for their kids and the grandparents were helping alot. I know my mom and dad helped financially a little when my brother and his wife divorced. It did not go on forever. It was just some help here and there but they were able to live their own lives. In my friends case she does not.

I can look at a few of my classmates and I know one that lives out west has not had much to do with his four kids since the ex moved back to Ohio well over 20 years ago. But she met someone else. So I just ponder what is going on in my generation that I am seeing more and more of this go on with people where they are perhaps too intertwined with what is going on and they end up with practically raising their grandkids?!

In this case this lady still has life ahead of her. She is pretty, she could remarry, but her chances are smaller because of the constant drain of her adult kids, despite the fact that when she was their age, she was doing it by herself.A single mom even then. I am not sure what has happened in the past generation that this is transpiring so much. I am not standing here condemning the grown up children or the parents. I am wondering what is going on that can change things. Will my friend go on enabling this to happen the rest of her life and miss out on having a life of her own, or at what point is there a plan to have the kids grow up and get off of their mothers breast milk and start eating solid foods as adults do?

Then there is the concept that many people think of about not judging until you walk in another persons shoes. This certainly has some merit, but it also does in no way have an answer to the issues at hand. It simply states that we do not know or unsderstand many times unless we have been there. That is indeed fair enough. However it can also be a crutch if people wish it to be so. Once again, only they know. But if we are honest with ourselves, which I hope my friend someday is, they will realize you have to ween, or your children will be proverbial breast feeders forever. Is that healthy? I have heard of stories of women breast feeding their kids until they were three. That is weird, I am sorry. It can not be healthy.

When we talk about weening, none is more scarry in my opinion than the mother birds who push their babies out of the nest when they know its time for them to learn to fly. I think she knows she will not always be there. Its inate in her to do so. But in doing so they gain the real freedoms in life. They learn to not only fly but also walk in the natural things of their instincts. It is then when they start finding food and taking responsibility for who they are. So there is fear in that. But somehow those mother birds make those tough choices. Otherwise, those baby birds may grow old but they may never really leave the nest.

So many times in life, and we all do this. We feel like things are so rough. Like no one can understand or appreciate truly what we go through. I could stand here and tell you how I lost my mom at 20 and my dad at 23. How I lost my marriage of 20 years after valiantly trying so hard. I could tell you how I raised my son alone since he was 14.

But, that is like complaining of breaking both of your legs. You are sitting at a table and just looking at the person across from you, sharing wheelchair stories and then when they smile at you and wheel themselves away you realize that they have no legs. Yours can get better. You still have shoes to walk in and they have none.

We can look at it like this. In the past few years I have had two classmates lose their daughters in motorcycle accidents. The worst thing that can happen to a parent is outliving their children. How tragic. But at the same time we can not save the world as hard as we try. The best gift we can give is to allow people to learn from their own mistakes at some point. Otherwise they will never step up and grow in the field of life they are planted in.