#0542 Reconcile with your parents

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Inner Peace Be Upon You

# 0542 Peace and Blessings Every Day

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Reconcile with your parents

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I remember when I was young. Probably about four or

five years old. My father would come to the U.S. from

Afghanistan after having been gone for some time. I

would be so happy. When he was around I would

cling onto him like a monkey on a tree. I would want

to breathe him in for I knew his stay was only temporary.

He had to go back to Afghanistan.

This was in the early 1990s and my father kept going

back because that’s where his business was to provide

for us.

He brought us to the U.S. initially on a temporary basis to escape the

war and destruction that the Cold War between the U.S.

and Soviet Russia and then the Civil War brought on our

door steps.

I remember how I was when I was younger because when I reached

my teenage years that little boy who was in love with his father changed.

I’ve always looked up to my father, but for some reason there was a lot of

pain and resentment that I had harbored.

I felt he was never there for me.

I felt like I had to grow up to be a man all on my own.

I felt hurt and angry.

I rebelled. I rebelled against him, and always made decisions

contrary to his advice while I was a teenager. This

essentially deteriorated my relationship with him. We would

barely speak to each other.

As I am now older, and a father myself, I remembered something

that was told to me. You see, I always told myself I don’t have a

relationship with my father, but one time I was told, “Ramin, you

do have a relationship with your father. It’s just not the one you want.”

That comment struck me. It really made me stop and reflect on what

I was saying and wanting myself to believe. So often we feel we

don’t have a relationship with someone, but more often it is that

we do, but it’s not the one we envisioned in our minds.

A lot comes with age, and one of those things I have started to realize

and appreciate is all the sacrifices my father had to make to

keep his family and children safe. My father was there for me.

He did the best that he could being in a situation where his life as he knew

it in Afghanistan--a place he grew up, built his business, his reputation, fell in

love with my mother, his close friends...everything--was gone overnight.

He truly did do the best he could given the circumstances that

life had given him.

As children we are selfish and we have every right to be simply because

we really don’t know better. But as we get older, we do learn how

the world works. Often circumstances and situations are out of our

control. Just as they were in my father’s situation. Although I know

it will take some time, one thing I have realized is the importance

of reconciling my relationship with my father.

Often we don’t appreciate what our parents have had to do, and take

them for granted until it is too late. If you are in a situation where you have

had a turbulent relationship with a parent, and they are still alive today, well

you have that window of opportunity of start that reconciliation process.

I know it is not easy. I still am building up the courage to apologize to my father

for what I put him through as a teenager. My ego is telling me I don’t have to

apologize because it is the nature of a teenager to go against a parent. Yet,

my spiritual peaceful side won’t feel good about until I do.

It is not easy, but the reconciliation has to start somewhere.

Inner Peace Be Upon You.

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Change a life, give a friend Peace and Blessings.

See you tomorrow.

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