They Only Call Me On My Birthday
I’m 45 and my parents are in their 80’s. We are mostly estranged, them more than me. There was a series of conversations. Things were said. Decisions were questioned. Faith in each other was lost.
I wanted to get away from them, to run as far away from them as I could. I live on the other side of the country now, and this is the only place that has ever felt like home to me.
I imagine my mom taking care of my dad as she shuffles along with her back hunched over, a string of her curly dyed black hair falling out of its bun. My dad, with a useless arm from a broken shoulder, a cane to help with an almost useless leg, and a mind that can’t communicate clearly. He does the best he can to help himself.
I imagine it’s never enough.
I email every month. I know they get them. They never respond. I call a few times a year. We only talk about the weather and the garden. They only call me on my birthday.
I don’t know what I’m looking for. Respect? Absolution? For them to be proud of me?
I know from the top of my spine to the bottom, none of that will ever happen. I keep trying even as the hill gets harder to climb. I watch it get higher. Slippery, muddy pathways, thorny bushes, and large stony boulders dot its surface and spread. I fear I will never get to the top.
Still, I worry and I try to remember them, wonder if they are okay. Are they laying on the floor without anyone to help? I try to forget, distract myself, knowing that from more than 2,600 miles away, there is little I can do to help.
Even if I could, they wouldn’t let me.
I know one day they will be gone, one at a time or together. Probably sooner than later. I wonder how it will feel. Will my guilt resolve? Will my anger go away? Will I have done enough? Will anyone be able to convince me that I have?
I will always wonder what I could have done differently under the hand of judgment and scorn, ridicule and disgust.
