I’m Part of a Strange Club, I Never Applied To.
The club of the parentless
When I was young, I wanted to be part of so many clubs: the babysitters, French, dance, girl guides. All the wholesome things that American TV told me would create the perfect life after school. I daydreamed of the dance solos and conversations with adults in French as I tried so very hard to get the footwork and verb conjugation correct. Neither of which came naturally.
It was disappointing to realize that some things were just going to be outside of my wheelhouse. But the fascination with the next big thing or club would soon take my attention, and off I was to learn a new skill with new friends and goals.
If you found my girl guides scarf, it would be a relic in a laundry list of hobbies, clubs, and groups that I didn’t really fit with. The perfect campfire, hip hop solo, French song, guitar riff, child care experience al l— beyond what I brought to the table.
The important thing for my development was the try. The “what if” I was these things. What if I joined the local choir and became the next big singer or songwriter out of my home town? What if I joined the basketball team and jetted to Europe after high school to play professional? What if I met my best friend, or imagine if I met a boy to date? The possibilities of these what if’s brought me to the doorstep of all these clubs.
From the outside, I wanted the dedication that they role-modeled for me. I wanted the activity of a student athlete, the creativity of a budding actor, or the confidence of a French club member. Was every club I yearned to join a good influence?
No. I also looked across the lunchroom to the popular kids with their seemingly endless freedom to smoke, drink, and dress their own way, and could picture myself in the middle of that crowd. I would have gladly given up my apparent small world for theirs.
None of these clubs fit me. I am so far from athletic, and smoking makes me sound like a jazz singer on their last tour for good reason. But still, there was a desire to find my fit.
That desire followed me into college, my 20’s, and even into my early 30’s. That desire never went away. The older I got, the fit just got tighter and the finding it harder.
Sure, I had amazing friends, building my own sub-clubs that allowed me to explore who I was and how to get to the next version of me.
I am now a member of the dead parents club. Having lost my father when I was 16 and my mother at 36 — 20 years between these different forms of pain, I find myself at a loss about how to move within this new club I’m in.
Before my mother passed away, I had one foot in and one out of this group. Sure, I was a member, but I had not paid the full membership dues. I still had a claim to non-membership because I wasn’t like those who had lost both parents; I wasn’t without, I was just down one parent.
I held on to this distinction without a difference for 20 years. I had an anchor in the real world, I had someone to pull me out of this club, this box. The membership dues in this club are too high for many people, no matter their age, to come to terms with. It requires you to give up both your past and a future you can’t put your finger on.
There will be no bride’s speech at a wedding, no grandparent to surprise with a namesake grandchild, no shoulder to cry on, and no safe space to arrive with only your heart on your sleeve when the world turns away from you and you have nothing left.
You also give up those stories of the days before you can remember, the firsts that you cherish, the silly laughter that only a parent can bring out in you, the total understanding of who you are because they knit you.
These are high membership dues for any club, one I never signed up for but now belong to.
Love Ray
