Before they went gold

In the usual ways, I am still going back and forth about the visit with my folks. One thing that keeps surfacing is that they talk a lot about resentments from the past.
One of those is my Mom and her sister who did not talk for a number of years before her death in 2008. Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of stuff unsaid, important issues unresolved and lifetime hurts that will remain. And, I think that's the point; there is something to hold onto if you don't let go. Great Country song title, but a serious problem for lots of us. I am certainly guilty of hanging on to things that don't exist, but resentment is not at the top of the list, so I did get to lecture on that, and may have been marginally successful, but most likely it was forgotten like the last meal or movie.
I told them they get to choose how they feel about some things and that they can make it a slight or feel maligned, or not. It is up to them.
That was not an automatic setting for them or me, and it should be. We can determine based on lessons learned, or by watching how through generations things remain unspoken but ever present, and how a word or two can change everything.