Dean Poling: Trading giants in our lives

Sep. 24—We were the apple of their eyes.

Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, mentors.

Not all of them. Sadly, not all of us.

Many children are the center of attention in their family world. Children may not feel it at the time, may not realize it, but looking back, through the perspective of adulthood and age, we may recognize it now.

We may realize that to some older person in our childhood lives we were looked upon like a Christmas tree — a wondrous thing — something special — alighting every room of the house.

We all deserved such a person or people in our childhood lives, and if they were there, they deserve to be recognized and remembered years later, even decades later.

But as time passes, as we age from children to adults, these people pass. They die. And we are left behind.

The people who saw us as children, who continued thinking and believing and telling us we are special, pass away. And we wish we had more time with them. We regret we didn't spend more time with them.

For those people who believed in us, who worried over us, are often the people we treated the worst as we grew up.

As we grew into teens, we called less often. We often visited only on holidays or only occasionally. We shared fewer details from our lives. We said less during visits. We may have been in their living rooms but our minds were impatiently elsewhere.

Still, looking back, recalling their questions about how we were doing, remembering the looks in their eyes, we realize we were still special to them. Even when we were hurtful.

We had never stopped loving these older generations in our lives but we were so busy with growing up, being young adults, that we ignored them. Because they were always there. Because their love was always unconditional. Because in our youths, as with so many things against our better judgment, we felt like they would be around forever because in our young lives, they had always been around.

We took that love for granted. Not realizing in the world, there would be fewer people who saw us as being as special as a Christmas tree. And as time passed, and they passed, there would be fewer still.

Things change.

As we grow older, we better understand these fading giants from our childhood. We have children and in time, perhaps, grandchildren, or some younger people in our lives. People whose lives seem more important than our lives.

We dote on them. We see them as Christmas trees alighting each room they enter. And as more time passes, they grow older and visit less, say less, share less, call less.

And still, as much as we wish we could see them more often, it's OK. We remember our own younger years. We remember our parents and grandparents. We understand them better with each passing year.

We realize that those older folks had once been the apples of some doting grandparent's eye. They had once been children, lighting up each room. Same as we once were. Same as the children in our older lives. It passes from generation to generation to generation.

Things stay the same. Only our perspective changes.

We have replaced the older giants in our lives with younger giants in our lives. And while we miss the memories of being seen as a Christmas tree, we bask in the glow of the young ones whose lights sparkle in our eyes.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.