On Being a Parent of Adult Children
Sometimes I don’t know how to be
I watched a YouTube video recently and it made me cry.
Brian Cranston (aka Walter White in the epic Netflix series Breaking Bad) described the most difficult scene he’s played in his acting career. The scene was when he watched Jane (Jessie’s girlfriend, played by Kristen Ritter) die as she choked on her vomit after a heroin overdose.
He said that when they filmed the scene, his own daughter’s face momentarily appeared as he watched Jane struggle — the emotion of seeing his daughter die before his eyes overwhelmed him. The experience shook him deeply, and he said that’s when he realized the greatest fear of a father is anything terrible happening to his children.
I thought of my daughter, and tears welled in my eyes.
It felt good to cry. Deep feelings not often accessed in my busy world of doing rose and flooded me. I felt vulnerable, raw, and exposed.
I wrote to my 36-year-old daughter. I shared this experience with her, telling her she’s been everything to me since she was born—a child and now a woman full of joy, laughter, determination, creativity, intelligence, kindness, and a relentless drive to achieve her goals and dreams.
