My Parents are Dead. Now I Know What I Wanted to Tell Them.
There are millions of American citizens just like me. This is true in so many ways. Female* Baby Boomer. Empty Nester. Mildly Depressed. Mildly Addicted. You can slice it however you like and I have millions upon millions of human peers in the United States. One category I fall into, with millions upon millions of americans is — orphan. My parents are both dead.
I am 50. My parents are now both dead. I am a boomer orphan,That’s where the similarities stop. Research** suggests the 45 million boomer orphans around the world
Story is about information, and how we’re often fighting, without knowing we’re fighting. Fighting is when we’re both battling. It can be huge — countries, to microscopic — microagressions. Now I only learned about that term a few years ago. It’s brilliant, but the way it’s used is wrong. Let’s put it to better use.
My son is grown now. I took him to florida, my parents were about 60, seemed far too young to be in a retirement community. Then i did one of those life consuming blinks, and they were 80. One blink more, they’re dead.
But when they were 60 and active and mobile, we walked around their community. My son was 4. He was a tear in my understanding of reality — joy from another dimension pierced into this world’s fabric of reality, injecting my consciousness with happiness like i’d never experienced. Unfortunately, if you carve out a happy little hole in the beach sand, the ocean comes to fill it. The possibility of nothingness, the ocean, filled my mind and made me oh so overprotective, sleep deprived, and tense. But, it is honest to say — all i thought about was keeping my kid alive. Hoping I could set him up to thrive. I was heavier, more tired, in every way less healthy, it was as if much of my lifeforce was being shared with him.
I am like millions of Americans in that I was a great mom. Another category I’m proud to occupy. I didn’t say all of my decisions were great. And it took me a couple decades to really believe i was a great mom, but i was great because I gave it my best, almost all of the time. There isn’t much more you can ask of a mom. We are held back by the same things that hold everyone back — information. We are empowered by the same thing that empowers every human — information. We are harmed by the same thoughts that harm everyone — information.
The world is about information. Our blindness to this makes us waste our lives. It’s as if we’re all tuned to different channels, and when we get onto the same channel with other people, we call that friendship, we call that love. If we can sustain that signal together for years, well, that’s as good as existence gets. I don’t think anyone would disagree — being in tune with a loved one for decades, feeling closer after 30 or 60 years than you did when you first met, well, that’s true magic. All the evidence we ever need.
My parents and I were not in tune. They were comfortably on their shared channel, while I was still scanning the dial, looking for “the right” signal. But I had no idea what that looked like. I think of one day in particular.
Their community had more car traffic than my Queens neighborhood, believe it or not. (Queens is so much more mellow than everyone realizes, but good for us. Keep it a secret.) And because it was florida, it was built in the 50s when there werent many cars, no one thought to build sidewalks. Why should we? Thees people are all going to die soon and everyone drives.
Well, now older folks who used to smoke and drink their days away and expire at 70 and usually creeping toward 90. I played golf with my dad and his friend. We drove a cart, his friend walked the course. He was 96. He played his last round at 99.
We went for a walk around their community. I felt unsafe. I was only thinking of my 4 year old’s safety. I laugh to think what was going though his head — it’s really hot down here, i now have three big people surrounding me and stressed out when i usually only have 1, but when i smile at any of them i get three times the smiles back, i get three times the attention and love.
But i didnt see any of this at the time. I was worried we were on the wrong side of the road. And this is where we are in human existence today — most of us are fighting with people every day, and don’t really know it.
I fought with my parents, and didn’t realize it until it was too late. They’re both dead.
They were walking on the left side of the road, with traffic coming at us. This felt close for me, since i wasnt used to having cars mere inches away from my baby (we have sidewalks everywhere in Forest Hills) My only motivation at the moment was to find out the truth that was important to me — what is the better side of the street to walk on AND WHY. i wanted to make the right decision. period. that was my motivation, A-Z. i questioned my parents insistence on the left side, they pattern matched and complained. “She always does this. Just like when she was a teen.”
The ensuing argument was similar to what Malcolm Gladwell refers to (can’t recall if it’s his term) as a ‘mismatch’, when someone’s behavior doesnt match what we expect of that person.
I felt like it would make more sense to be farther away from the cars. I was only thinking of my son. Tunnel vision became a pinhole camera.
They were thinking about lunch.
It was like a motivational mismatch. A misunderstanding of the other’s intention.
They saw me, and of course there was love. But, there was so much more. Piles of negatively-charged stories. Now that I’m a parent who can look back on her time caring for a chrysalid and watching it fly away, I realize how complex my relationship was with my offspring. We were connected, physically, via umbilical cord. After that severs, the mental umbilical cord remains, strengthens, and multiplies.
Be one of the very few Americans who thinks about death.
- *whatever you think that means anymore… more on that kerfuffle in a bit
- **my own, highly unscientific
