1,263 Quotes About Parents

These rocksare the churchwhere I knelt in black worsted silkbeside my mother.Her shoulders sharpbeneath my embrace.My mother: a solid wailing.These rocks are the soilwhere she kneelsbefore the whorls of roses,kneeing before that boxas if it were my father's grave.The closed anemonesoffer their sticky blossomsas the tide washes toward me.Small bits of the coastmeet my skin,scraping my iron onto my knees.

There's a saying: those who do not swimdeep in the waters from which they camecannot arrive in the oceans they hope to go.My parents began an ocean awayand arrived in a land of lakes and snow.I've been back to their waters (is it mine, too?)but, wasn't a good swimmer.Everyone spoke underwater; I could onlyhold my breath to listen for so long.I did learn the water carries its own song.

It's difficult seeing parents for who they are rather than who we want them to be.

Even if all I did was stay away... it's still the best thing I ever did in my life.

I let his voice be my comfort. It bore no trace of pain or self-pity, carrying only good humor and softness and just the tiniest hint of jazz. I lived on it as if it were oxygen. It was sustaining, and it was always enough.

They were meant to carry you. Not just when it’s convenient. Not just when you were small. For your entire life. You were brought into the world to be loved, and guided, and carried. That’s the deal they made, the day you were born.

And soon a cold realization hit me: The time for giving up hope and 
letting go was now. It would be my parting gift to her. And as I cried 
into Mom’s ear and held her hand, and told her it was okay to let go, that I’d be fine, I felt her chest rise one last time. There was no long 
continuous beep like you see in the movies. Just a deafening silence 
and my echo of good-bye skipping down the side of her ear like a coin 
down a deep well.

Because let me tell you something-girls need their fathers. Look at me and Dad. He might not have been the most expressive guy in the world, but I always knew at some really deep level that he was there for me. And look at what he did for me when I came out. We stopped going to church, for God’s sake! He chose me -over God, over our community, over everyone.

Death of parents leaves minor children at the mercy of the merciless or merciful.