Growing up I spent my whole life surrounded by sickness. Also not to mention the age gap between my parents, and my dad being 81 years old I have dealt with all sorts of struggles. Not saying that I am living a horrible life because I have sick parents, more so that I have learned to value a few things throughout the years because I know that I might not have my parents around for the next 40 years of my life.

• People will always assume life sucks when you have a sick family member

Seriously though. What is the first thing that someone does when you tell them that you have a family member that is sick? They automatically feel sympathetic for you. Not saying that this is a bad thing because it isn’t. But it’s what they do after that. They treat you like you are some broken record that has to be dealt with care. Honestly, due to the fact of me knowing how it feels, I don’t show much sympathy. I am not saying that I don’t, I tell them that I am sorry and I move on. Because I know that I want to be treated as if they didn’t know. Just because I am dealing with some stuff doesn’t automatically mean that I have the worst life and no one has a worse life than me. Honestly, I know people have it worse than I do. Plus I don’t like drawing attention to myself. But maybe this thing is only me.

• No one will truly understand what it is like to have sick parents, until they are in that position.

Though this might go against my number one thing, it is still something I think that people need to take into consideration. The hardest thing that I think that I have ever heard from most of the people is that they “understand”. And it frustrates the heck out of me because they don’t understand. They don’t know what it is like to wake up and constantly worry about the condition that their parents are in. They don’t understand how it is to face a fact that your parents might not be around when you have children (at least for me I know I won’t have my father). No one truly understands what it’s like. But once they see it from our eyes, then they will know.

• Time is everything

I know that as a teenager, my attitude is that I never want to be around home and that I never want to hang out with my parents. I mean now a days, that is just the thing. And I know that I think like that too. But, due to the fact that I know that I have to face the fact that time means everything. Especially knowing that my parent’s health is never going to get any better. I have had my nights were I have cried my eyes out because every girl dreams of the day that her dad is going to walk her down the ale and he is going to hand her off to the man that she plans on spending the rest of her life with. But knowing my situation, I have come to realize that it might not happen that way for me. I might not have my dad there when I get married and trust me it breaks my heart. To try and fathom the thought of walking down the ale without my arm embraced around his, alone, kills me on the inside. And every single time I hear a song that I want my dad and I to dance to on that very day, I look over at him and say “dad, you and I are going to dance to this song on my wedding day okay?” But I know that in my heart it might not happen.

Out of all of the things, I really believe that this is the biggest one out of all of them. We are all given a limited amount of time on this earth, and we are given a limited amount of time to love the people that we surround ourselves with and we have a limited amount of time to show those people how much we truly care. Because for all we know, tomorrow they could be gone. Do you really want the last thing that you ever said to them to be something negative? Do you really want them to not know truly how much you care? I know that I have been bad at this. I have been bad at valuing my time with the people that are in my life and I have been bad about telling them that I love them. But growing up, realizing how close I am to being on my own. I realized that I have not spent enough time. I haven’t told them that I love them enough. And I have missed out on moments that I will regret missing out on. So please if you can’t relate to anything, please just walk away thinking about the last thing that you said to the person that you love. Make sure that you are happy with the last thing that you have said. And if you aren’t, try and change it.