Remember to love your parents

There's always an excuse.

"Sorry, but we've/I've been busy." "I just need some time by myself to call you, and there hasn't been any." "I forgot my phone in my gym bag and haven't been to the gym in a few days." "I have a lot on my plate right now, no time to chat or return text messages."

If you are a parent who has a child or children who are grown, admit it that you've heard one or more of the above excuses from one of your children.

We have three children. One is our biological child and two are my husband's children. This blog is not to purposely slam my husband's children, because sure enough, our son has used one of those excuses before, too. Often, he gets the message and is too busy to reply or act on a request – or he acts on it and doesn't acknowledge that he got the message and we think he's ignoring us.

In fact, some of those excuses used as examples can often apply to a friend, a sibling, a co-worker, even a business associate.

We all seem to be too busy to be our parent's children, a cousin, a sibling, a friend, a co-worker. The world today is full of excuses and most of them, frankly, stink.

My mother, who died in 1982 – long before cell phones, Internet, tablets, iPads, iPhone, and all the multi-media accoutrements that make up our lives in 2013 – would have surely called the perpetrator simply ... rude.

In the past, we have had arguments with our children and they take a stance of, "they're always right and the parent is wrong." They think that because they are 26 or 28 or 30 or 40 that they can live without their parent(s), their lives are full enough with children, jobs, each other, hobbies, football, golf, girls or boys night out, extracurricular activities ... whatever.

We are born and our parents raise us. Pretty early on we begin straining at the apron strings. We balk at our parent's authority because we know better – we're younger, more hip, more well-informed and our parents are, of course, dumber than dirt, older than dirt, and just plain clueless.

It's no longer "Father Knows Best," it's "Kids Know Best."

And don't we know that we did that to our parents not so many years ago?

Our relationship with my husbands kids has been rough from time to time. Their childhood wasn't easy. Their parents were divorced and our son had both his parents. I met my husband long after his first divorce, but still there is resentment.

But you can only reach out so much. Even when we've been on wonderful, friendly terms, they don't answer their phones, don't reply to texts, don't even reply to Facebook messages, until it suits them to do so. But then, so does our own son.

It's the same old excuse. "I've been really busy." "Our child exhausts us and we have no time to return calls."

This one gets to me. I see and hear this all the time, even if its not my own kids. Your child exhausts you? Are you the first person on the planet to have a kid?

'Sorry Dad, Mom, we didn't answer the door when we invited you over because we fell asleep. We are so very tired. You see, we are parents now and we've had our child for the last five days without a babysitter, so we went to bed and didn't answer the door when you came over.'

I get that being a parent is exhausting. I WAS and AM a parent. I'm not so old as to have forgotten how tiring it is to be a young parent.

My husband and I raised our son with no family nearby. We both worked long hours and both were generally in jobs nowhere near where we lived. We, like most others, commuted. We took our son everywhere with us and he learned early on how to behave, how to speak properly to his elders, how to be polite to others, how to respect the property of others and especially how to hold a door for anyone in need (or a lady if need be). One of the constant compliments I get on my son is that he's so very polite and respectful.

We didn't get respites from raising our child. If we had to get an oil change on the car, we got an oil change on the car – and took our son with us. If we had a doctor's appointment, he came with us. It wasn't an entire production, it was simply living our lives without excuses and dealing with everything head on.

For our children and their children of today's world, they are all technologically advanced. My husband's son and his wife co-own a business with a partner. They always have their phones in their hands as does my own son – his business depends on it.

So what is the true excuse for not returning texts or phone calls unless it's truly you who instigated it?

Frankly, I don't think it's past regrets, childhood arguments, or even current arguments that are the hold up. We can profess to adore each other and the next day a text or phone call will go unanswered.

How many of you have sent an email to someone for business, personal or even a query for something and not received a reply? OR you get a reply, but the recipient who is replying can't manage to answer more than 2-3 questions at one time. OR, you get the excuse – you wrote too much, I can't read that much.

What? Do I need to email you phonetically? Is that what it takes to be able to read a full email? I could tell you it all in an actual conversation, but you don't answer my phone calls either.

As a society we are rude to each other – anyone who has been on Twitter or Facebook can attest to that. In the last six months, I can't believe how many Facebook threads have turned ugly in a manner of a few replies here and there on assorted pages. Someone pipes in with a sarcastic comment and a conversation turns to something that has nothing to do with the original beginning thread.

Someone replies to the change in topic – again sarcastically or rude, and bam! Bullying has reached Facebook.

Not returning phone calls, emails, text messages or even Facebook messages to someone, especially a loved one is a form of bullying and control.

It's not just us – the meek and lowly. The morning news is constantly filled with the rich and famous doing this to each other. Just this morning the ongoing feud between Madonna and Lady Gaga was reported in the first 15 minutes of a national news report.

I have even managed to go slightly off topic here. And before I continue, I want to remind you to think of a normal, everyday conversation with anyone. It rarely stays on topic, we always stray to something else, so why isn't it logical to do it when on Facebook, Twitter, email or instant messaging?

I digress. Today's topic was to be about honoring our parents. God taught us how to deal with our parents quite simply.

The fifth commandment is, "Honor thy father and thy mother."

How many times a day is this broken?

Yes, some of us have bad parents. Parents who hurt us, who abuse us. But most of us have good, decent hardworking parents. Raising children was a struggle for them, their parents and their parent's parents, just as it is today.

I too have lost my parents. My mother died when I was 26 and she was 65. My dad died 11 years ago at 87. At the tender age of 57, I am only eight years from the age in which my mother died, and I am an orphan.

I miss my mommy and my daddy. Every. Single. Day.

When my mother was dying, I was a young, self-absorbed 26-year-old. I paid no attention to her for several years before she got sick and still didn't, in my opinion, understand the seriousness of her illness, her dying and the impact it would have on my life.

She died Nov. 6, 1982. Even worse, on July 16 of that same year, my 18-year-old nephew was hit by a car and died, just six days after his birthday.

Seven months prior to his death, my nephew had called me, right before New Year's Eve and wanted to come to Portland, Maine, where I was living and stay with me so he could attend a New Year's Eve concert. I remember being short with him and telling him an emphatic no.

We were just seven years apart in age, so we sort of grew up together. He was a good kid. I have always regretted how I treated him.

I never spoke to him again. I forgot his birthday and his high school graduation, which was shortly before he died. And suddenly he was gone. I have had to live with the way I treated him before his death for 31 years. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him. Praise the Lord for him being in my life. God has forgiven me, now if I could do the same.

My mother and my nephew are two examples of just how short life is. We should never take anyone for granted.

I spent the next 20 years making up for lost time with my Dad. I spent most of my vacations with him and made sure my son had a strong relationship with his grandpa. We loved each other tremendously and telling each other so was our last words to each other.

That's how you love your parents.

For someday, we will all be in that place – sick and dying – or maybe taken quickly, you just never know. Life is far too short to take anyone for granted, to not mend a fence, to not reconcile. No amount of "I have to be right" is, well, right.

Answer that text, reply to that Facebook message, make that phone call. Let your parent (or loved one) know you love them. Let the crap flow under the bridge. Nothing is so important as to let someone go.

God doesn't. Why should we?

Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life" says it best, "Focus on Reconciliation, not Resolution."

Forgiveness lifts the weight off your chest – whether forgiving your parents or forgiving yourself.

Lift that weight and breathe in the love.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ~ Matthew 11:28-30