Why Do We Criticize ?

   First and foremost I would like to express this is not my attempt to smear anyone's image especially that of my Grandmother who recently passed. I love my life and all who are in it. She was in my life. For years I resented her because she was so critical of me. She would say things that were embarrassing and do it in front of other people. She would speak of me as an uneducated looser because I didn't go to college. She spoke badly at my decision to have bi racial children and the choices i had made alone my journey. None of it ever helped. All of it made it worse and it pushed me away from my family. I wanted nothing to do with her. She was mean and I couldn't take it anymore.
   As she grew older she learned how to put away some of the insults but never the less she always followed through with getting one jab in or maybe two , She was a critic of habit. It was always the same thing, my weight, my education, and my choices. After that wasn't much left of me to criticize. I had grown older and was better at blocking the insults but it still was not what I had wished it to be.
   As she grew older she became old and frail. She was shrinking into nothing but yet her mental presence was so strong. The last time we spoke she was so kind to me. She told me how often she thinks of me and how she loves me so. She played the harmonica for me and it was the sweetest sound ever. She didn't criticize me not one time. In all those years she had the biggest impact on me in this one final moment where she lay the criticizing down and just loved me. She put such a tug on my heart that when she finally did go just a few weeks later I was sad., I felt a weight as if she had never been who she really was in my life. One short moment of unconditional love made up for a lifetime of criticizing.
    Why do it ??> Why do we criticize those we love ?? Is that we are just thinking out loud and all of our opinions of others find it their duty to be known ?? We limit our influence greatly when we criticize. You say your trying to help, well that is a bunch of crap. Criticizing is not helping. Fortunately for my Grandmother she was given the time to remove the bad with the good but not everyone gets that chance. Maybe this is the good that can come out of the bad in this story ... that one of you who reads this  and realizes they have been to critical of a loved one. Don't send that temptation is reverse and begin to criticize yourself for being critical of others.. Just recognize and make some adjustments and keep it moving. I love my Grandmother and I am thankful that she taught me valuable lesson. I don't want to push the people I love away from me. I want people to feel loved by me. I want to create memories of value in the lives of others. I want to be as gentle as I can.