I discovered something odd about my thinking the other day. Some of you may not know this, but my mom died in 1984 when I was 6. The thing I discovered is how deeply this affects my thinking about other people and their parents. If someone older than me mentions that they are doing something with their dad, I don’t think twice about it. If that same person were to mention doing something with their mom, I think to myself “wow, how old must their mom be, I’m surprised they’re still alive?”. Another odd thing is it’s only people older than me. If it’s someone I know is younger than me, this line of thinking doesn’t happen.

I’ve been doing this subconsciously for years. It wasn’t until the other day that I realized I was doing it. I’m not exactly sure what that says about me, but it opened my eyes to how deeply my mom’s early death has affected me in ways I’m still uncovering.