It is commanded: Honor thy father and thy mother.

Who attempts to deny or separate themselves from a mother or a father would be denying the reality of themselves and who they are.

We are not born out of thin air, and mist at the touch of a magic wand. We are born out of a miracle of creation, the mating of a man and a woman, a father and mother.

In all of time, and space, no other pairing except this mother and father could have created the unique being that we each are. Nor brought us out of the void of nothingness into a life and its living.

We are made of what they are: virtues and flaws. If we resent the flaws in them, stress the virtues in ourselves.

For the miracle of our birth we must pay heed to the dictum, honor thy father and mother, lest in cutting our self away from the source of our being, we become spiritual orphans.

This invocation is particularly germane with my having to place my mother in an assisted living center in early June, due to her progressive lack of mobility, and tendency to fall while getting out of bed. My decision was overdue, but wanting to avoid her wrath, Rich and I kept procrastinating until her caretakers (Visiting Angels) resolutely recommended we move her into a facility, which could offer 24-hour care.

Previously, she lived in our house in Mount Vernon, with twice-daily visits by Visiting Angels, who helped with dressing, cooking, laundry, cleaning, and chores, like feeding the cat, bringing in the newspaper, and changing the linens. On weekends, Rich and I took over, giving the Visiting Angels a break.

We’ve been deeply involved in my mother’s care for the past two years from setting up and overseeing care when she lived in Oregon to moving her to Washington, refurbishing her Oregon house, managing all aspect of her life (i.e. setting up services, paying bills, purchasing groceries, etc.), and most recently, moving her into a care center.

My brother, meanwhile, who lives in Oregon (and at one point, worked a few miles from his mother’s house), has done little more than visit her a few times in the past two years. While he’s offered lots of advice over the years, he’s done little to remediate issues.

When my mother lived in a two-story house, and kept falling, and complaining about the stairs, it was Rich and I who drove to Oregon to move her bedroom furniture, clothing, and personal items downstairs. My brother managed to show up for less than two hours to help, while Rich and I were there for days cleaning, doing home repairs, and purchasing items she needed.

My brother’s participation in moving my mother was to spend less than two hours helping load her furniture into a U-Haul. Rich and I spent the subsequent four months, driving to Oregon (over 3 hours each way), every other weekend (and sometimes every weekend) refurbishing her house so it could be leased.

A year earlier, I’d asked my brother to coordinate services with Visiting Angels. He did nothing. Finally, I made arrangements for an initial visit, which needed to be done during the workweek. My brother agreed to be there, but at the last moment, backed out. In the end, a woman who cleaned my mother’s house – and proved to be a great friend – worked with Visiting Angels.

Returning to my grandmother’s invocation, she wrote, “We are made of what they are: virtues and flaws. If we resent the flaws in them, stress the virtues in ourselves.” My mother has many flaws, the most pronounced is her narcissism. She’s always placed her needs and feelings above others. When my brother and I got sick, we’d be scolded for getting sick, and promptly sent to school to minimize the possibility of my mother also catching our illness.

Even though my mother stopped working when she was 28, and was widowed when 40, she felt housework, cooking, and gardening was my responsibility. She resented that I had homework, and saw nothing wrong with forbidding me from going out and being with friends. She argued my chores were more important, and since my projected future was to marry, have kids, and build a mother-in-law apartment, there wasn’t a need for me to do well in school.

Fearing my brother would turn into a “mama’s boy,” my mother sketched a different plan for him, ensuring he had time to be with friends, participate in Boy Scouts, and attend school events. His room was relocated to the far end of the house so he had his own bathroom, and privacy. While I was cooking, cleaning, and sewing or doing needlework at night (my mother felt these skills were more important than school work), my brother was in his room with the door closed, doing as he pleased. Ditto for the weekends. When he was done with his chores, his time was his own.

My time was rarely my own.

When my mother’s parents grew older, my mother would visit once a year, and then spend the next three months complaining how stressful it was to visit them. Towards the end of her parents’ lives, my mother refused to fly from Portland, Oregon to Burbank, California to see them. She didn’t go to their funerals or participate in helping close up their estate. Instead, she complained it was taking too long to get her inheritance.

Now that my mother’s life is drawing to a close, it’s easy to see why my brother’s participate has dwindled. He has the same flaws as his mother.

While I’m equally flawed, I’m proud to have the character and virtue to do what’s right, even though it’s been burdensome. I don’t honor my mother. I simply do what’s necessary and expected.

The child rolls on the floor, fists pounding, legs kicking, big tears flooding down it’s checks, each new cry demanding that it be denied no longer. It wants what it wants. And right now.

We adults, of course, can’t indulge in such tantrums. We can’t throw ourselves on the floor, kicking and screaming. But, there are other ways to be bratty. Ways subtle and not so subtle.

We can pressure, and threaten, and coerce, even steal. Because we too want what we want when we want it. We too, resent being denied.

Then, sometimes, like the child, when we finally get what we were yelling for, we find we really didn’t want it after all. All we wanted was to assert our authority.

Or we disappointed. It wasn’t what we thought it would be. We had deluded ourselves.

O’Lord, teach us that we cannot get everything we want, and what we want is not always best for us. Make use see that difference between acquiring on our own, and the injustice of making demands on others for our own self-gratification.

O’ Lord, let the child in us outgrow its tantrums.

While grown people typically don’t engage in tantrums, laying on the floor, kicking and screaming, I think many people don’t outgrow the behavior they exhibited as children from timidity to bullying.

While my grandmother interpreted some people as asserting their authority to get what they want, even if they later discover it wasn’t what they coveted, I believe these people never had the self-control necessary to quiet their need to constantly get what they want. As babies, they were pampered, getting their way. In kindergarten, they were the ones grabbing other’s toys, and as they grew, they were the bullies, and overbearing teens who trounced on others.

In adulthood, they became entrepreneurs, top sales people, athletes, and promoters who are determined to “win” at all costs. Their tantrums evolved into tirades, intimidating and over-powering co-workers. They are the ones who always need the last word, the most praise, and the perceived, most prestigious positions. They trounce on others to cover up for their deficiencies and slipups.

Hoping these people realize there’s a difference between acquiring on their own, and the injustice of making demands on others for their own self-gratification is naïve. There are stark disparities in how baby boomers, Generation X, and Millennials or Generation Y, see the world. The latter have been shown to have an elevated sense of entitlement and narcissism, having been raised with technology an arms-reach away.

There’s no need to wait or be tolerant when answers are a click-away through a search engine verses wading through a book or encyclopedia. Photos instantaneous instead of waiting for film to be developed. Communication as quick as putting a cell phone to your ear, typing a few sentences (or characters), and clicking “send.” Since childhood, they’ve be entertained and coddled with access to programming that makes learning and passing the time fun and easy. Should they do poorly, they’re told “It’s okay. Everyone’s a winner.”

What’s to be done? There’s nothing to be done, but to realize and acceptance some people will never outgrow their tantrums, and will pin anything that goes wrong, impedes their quest to get ahead, or acquire what they want on the unfortunately people who cross their paths. For them, self-gratification is a higher calling than collaboration and working towards a common cause or attainment.

Some years ago at the supermarket, I was pushing a cart down the aisle. Up the aisle, with a child in her cart, came this pretty-faced, broad-bodied mu-mu-gowned lady.

Not until she drew alongside me, and her words heavy with sarcasm fell on my ears, “Did you have a good look? Did you see enough?’ Did I realize I’d been starting at her?

Stunned with embarrassment, I stood stock-still. She walked on, and even when she turned the corner, I could hear her voice angrily protesting to her companions about ill-mannered, oafs like me.

Coming to, I wanted to run after her, explaining that I wasn’t looking at her, but at the yoke of her dress. By coincidence I was making a dress similar to hers, and having trouble setting in the yoke. And that’s where my eyes were fastened, to see how the yoke of her dress was set.

I should have gone after her. I didn’t. My spirit wanted to, but my feet were rooted.

My explanation might not have made her feel better, but I would have one less regret to carry around on my conscience.

O Lord, all these little regrets. They lie asleep then suddenly awaken to prick our memory with the sting of a needle. And we must relive what we want to forget. Perhaps, they are meant to serve as reminders to be mindful of our manners.

As you age, and experience life, interacting with people socially and at work, the more regrettable memories accumulate. And while there’s a desire for a mental cleanser to erase them, there’s no cleanser, unless you’re devoid of scruples.

The worse regrettable moments are tied to sharp words, directed at a spouse, friend, or neighbor. It can be as an unintentional the slip-of-the-tongue when you point out something that’s troubling to the individual such as their weight, occupation, social status, or origin. Or it could be a well-craft barrage of words, designed to inflict emotional pain.

In either case, they’re awkward to take back, and can be difficult to recover from as the pile of insults, innuendoes, and barbs pile up.

My grandmother regards these “pricks of memory” as a reminder to be mindful of one’s manners. However, technology has resulted in a decline in manners. The niceties of truly talking to someone is now a call-on-the-run, a terse instant message, or hastily written email. One’s attention is reduced to sound bites, interrupted by buzzing phones, and dinging devices. No one is rude because almost everyone is preoccupied – getting updates, snapping selfies, responding to texts, checking an email, watching flicks, playing game or making calls or listening to what’s being piped into their ears via Bluetooth or earbuds.

Attention spans and courtesies have fallen off the ends of bell curves, becoming seemingly non-existent. As a result, if my grandmother would have spied the “broad-bodied mu-mu-gowned lady” today, she probably would have pulled out her smart phone, and brazenly snapped a picture of the women’s dress. She may have even posted it to Pinterest or maybe her Facebook page, commenting she was sewing a similar outfit.

The words are meant simply as a mild rebuke for something the other had thoughtlessly done.

The tone was low-keyed. The manner polite. The intent friendly.

The other bristled and took offense. The retort came out angry.

So began an exchange of recriminations.

Friends are friends no more.

O Lord, why do people have to be so sensitive!

My grandmother was a copious writer. Recently, I found a notebook, which I thought was a collection of miscellaneous observations, but further reading revealed it was a diary from 1948. She’d typed pages of everyday occurrences and observations from the oppressive summer heat in her Burbank, California home to deep philosophical ruminations about world events.

She also wrote about family strife. Her husband, Morris, had seven eccentric sisters whose lives overshadowed the happenings occurring between my grandmother’s three sisters and three brothers. The latter lives, in contrast, were dull.

While the event my grandmother wrote about in the invocation above probably had nothing to do with her immediate family, it illustrates the perpetual drama, which became a part of her life, following her marriage. With seven artistic, energetic sisters-in-law, each trying to success in a world where making an impact requires more than determination, there were continual marriages, divorces, births, jobs losses and successes, housing changes, and bickering among each other and in-laws. Contributing to the discord was a generous helping of mental illness, ranging from narcissism to nymphomania and schizophrenia.

It is commanded: Thou shalt not steal.

The thief, by stealth or gun, can steal anything, and everything, depriving the victim of material goods, treasured possessions, even peace of mind, and trust beyond the reach of the thief. The inner resources, the inner strengths, the feeling of self-worth that enables the victim to surmount the loss and remain whole.

But what if the thefts are committed by ourselves upon ourselves? Like robbing the body of vitality and physical well-being be neglect or over-indulgence.

Despoiling the mind with drink and drugs. Indulging in self-gratifications that deplete mind, body, and soul, and destroy one’s sense of personal value and worth.

Denying oneself the satisfaction of accomplishment by chasing after mirages instead of realities.

And where shall we find our inner strengths and resources if we allow them to wither along the way?

If we victimize ourselves are we less the thief than the stranger who steals our gold?

O Lord, there is no greater wisdom than that embodied in your commandments, but may we add another: Thou shalt not commit theft upon thine own self.

Wow!

I don’t know if I can offer any commentary on what my grandmother wrote, besides admitting to the unequivocal theft upon myself. I’m not sure I chase “mirages,” but I certainly deny myself the satisfaction of accomplishment and squash my inner strengths and resources by habitually discrediting the quality of my work. Then again, maybe my dissatisfaction with my work stems from having to crank it out so quickly.

In my mind, what’s produced quickly can’t possibly carry the save gravitas as something mulled over for days, weeks or months. But, today’s work environment dictates a few do the work once done by many, at an accelerated pace, fueled by the speed of email, convenience of remote conference (and video) calls, and efficiency of PCs and devices.

Perhaps the real thief of inner strength, resources, and self-worth is technology. Like drink and drugs, it doesn’t discriminate or have pity. It lures in its victims, intoxicating them with power and entertainment. Consider the enticement of online games, social networks, videos, dating, and even pornography.

Thirty years ago, when my grandmother typed this invocation on a typewriter, she never could have imagined the bits and bytes of electronics could one day become more insidious and intoxicating than any theft one could commit upon themselves.