Questions You Should Ask Your Parents Before It's Too Late

I miss my parents everyday. My Dad died in the fall of 1993, right before Ben and I started working together. My Mom passed away in February of 2003 after assuring me she was simply having minor surgery and not to worry about coming out to see her. To this day, I constantly find myself wishing I had had the courage or simply the thought to ask them all kinds of questions.

My sister Carmela (who lives in Pueblo, Colorado) has been working on our family tree on Ancestry.com for a couple of years now, but it has been a difficult process without input from our parents. My sister Carolyn has a box full of old photographs my grandmother (our mom's mom) had stashed in her house and finding out who everyone is has been close to impossible, but she persists. They both have much more knowledge of our past than I do, but I think we all wish for more.

My dad, Gabriel was born in New York City, but was taken back to Italy as a toddler and raised there until he was 21 or so. My mom, Veronica, (who's real first name was Mary which she hated and yet gave that to my sister Carmela as her middle name, go figure) was born in Harrison, Montana, moved to New York City to go to nursing school and stayed there for almost 20 years. That is where she met my dad and the legend began.

She Sheds Are a Thing Now

Beyond that, much of what went on when our parents were kids is a mystery, because we never talked about it much. My dad's extended family was either in Italy or New York City, two places that were only returned to for weddings or funerals. (This time was not spent on conversations about family trees, but it was perfect for starting or propagating family feuds, rumors and health complaints!)

My mom's family was an even deeper mystery. Veronica would always tell us that her dad, Thomas Johnson, "sailed over from Ireland on a potato bush!". I think it was her way of reminding us and herself of her Irish heritage. But beyond that I know practically nothing about her side of the family. Again, because as young people we either didn't care or didn't think we'd run out of time to ask. We did.

And it is not just family heritage that matters to me now. I wish I could have asked them more about their thoughts on life in general, what they wanted when they were young as opposed to how their lives turned out. My parents marriage was an extremely rocky one, and they were separated for the last 12 years of my dad's life. As intelligent as my father was, he was also was extremely abusive, in all likelihood because he was bi-polar. My mom also had her own issues with depression.

So it may be understandable that merely surviving in our household then was a noble aspiration and gathering family information about what we might have wanted to know in the future was not a priority. I wish we could have made it one.

With all of this in mind, here are some questions you should ask your parents before they leave the planet.