Every once in a while T gets on his soap box and starts giving me his opinion on something I am doing. Last week he was blah blah blah-ing and I looked at him and said, "Are you done lecturing?" He said, "uh huh." I was mildly annoyed but at the same time knew he really really cared about me enough to get passionate about my actions. It wasn't until the ride home that I noticed the exchange though was a regression and that I had really become a defiant teenager and T the caring parent. I don't think I noticed this before because I don't know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a caring parental lecture. (I give plenty to my own kids but my parents were unable.) I do know that if this had occurred two years ago I would have been really really really mad at him because I would have expected the explosive temper of my father and the learned explosive reaction from myself. I think this is proof that the healing comes in such tiny increments but is really, truly, possible.

I feel lucky.