Pleasure Before Death

One of the things that we observe in our reflections of parents and grandparents past, or if they are living, how they have changed in their retirement, is how quickly time passes and how little knowledge gets passed from generation to generation. In an article: "Grandparents to Teenagers: connecting the dots across generations with seniors" this feeling of potential loss was acted on.

"I want my kids to get a little of the flavor of the lives their elders lived. What were the details of their lives when they were young, what did they do for fun back then? I am now a thirty-something mother of two and asking this question for myself, not my kids: “How do I get more quality time with my parents?”

One of the first things I have come to learn is that raising kids today is just another full time job we can add to our list of things to do. It does not even take into account the social connection efforts I must take in getting my parents to talk, and also in getting my kids to listen. I knew that getting my parents to talk about themselves is what I wanted my kids to hear.

So I mark this article as a beginning to expand on that conversation.