How being a caregiver helped me see my mistakes

*We talk about Latinos caring for their elders as an honor, an obligation. But sometimes the path isn’t straight, or easy. It ends in the same place, though. That’s what Ray tells us. VL

By Ray Salazar, The White Rhino

More times than I wish, I made the mistake of forgetting to consider my parents’ perspective. In temperamental outbursts, I snapped, yelled, judged, and criticized my parents for not reacting to difficult situations the way I think they should have reacted. It’s been a long time since this happened, I think. The way I remember it, it happened a lot when I was in my 20s.  But maybe it happened more than that.

Focused on my own ambition, I mistakenly did not recognize that my parents were doing the best they could in many overwhelming situations.  These days, in my early 40s, I try to make up for that mistake every day.  I don’t do this out of guilt.  I do this because this is what my parents deserve: understanding.

I didn’t always consider the challenges of two immigrants who wanted the best for their four children but did not always get what they hoped for. They faced one child’s leukemia diagnosis without medical insurance, two others’ urban struggles without knowledge of what to do, and one’s ambitious dreams that they could not afford to financially support. In all this flurry, I mistakenly forgot that my parents, once upon a time, had dreams, too.

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This article was originally published in The White Rhino.

Since 1995, Ray has been an English teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. In 2003, Ray earned an M.A. in Writing, with distinction, from DePaul University. In 2009, he received National Board Certification. His writing aired on National Public Radio and Chicago Public Radio many times and have been published in the Chicago Tribune and CNN. For thirty years, Ray lived in Chicago’s 26th Street neighborhood. Today, he lives a little more south and a little more west in the city with his wife, son, and daughter.