Day: November 8, 2017

Day 9…A letter to my parents

A letter to my parents

This is a difficult letter to write. Mom, you are here to read it. Dad, you don’t get to hear this but I sure wish you could. If what I have been raised to believe is true, that spirits live on, then maybe you are aware of the things I have said to your stone. You know, the things I wish I had said when you were alive.

I have no complaints. Dad, you would laugh at that and say “oh good” but hear me out. A lot of people my age complain about their parents. They say they wish they had gotten more of this, less of that, etc. This comes in many forms; they wish they had more money, more TV’s, more vacations. They wish they had less curfews, rules, siblings, after-school activities. The list goes on. And this gives a foundation for blame. Did you know that I grew up lower -middle class? Well I did. And I didn’t know it and I didn’t care. It wasn’t until I had another friend’s house, dinner, Television or car to compare it to that I even gave it a thought. Those are just things. All I know is that I never needed anything. If I was to compare it to what my children had you would think that I was poor growing up. In reality I was just fine.

Things don’t validate the childhood, the “adult you” validates the childhood.

Dad, you came from a hard scrabble background. You were poor. Plastic on the windows and dirt floors poor. You learned early on, unlike your siblings, that hard work was the means to self-improvement and your only way out. Everything you had you worked hard for and you cared for those things and made them last. From you I learned so many things that I carry with pride; to work hard and ask no one for anything, to always remember where you came from, be yourself if people don’t like you it’s their problem, that things always work out. You were a dedicated father and you did everything you could to give me a better childhood than yours.

Mom, you survived a near-fatal childhood disease. Your life was saved by an experimental medication regimen. Your mother was a very proper woman with a too-high regard for appearances and a fleeting sense of humor. Your father a properly grounded hard-working but fun-loving WW2 veteran with a huge heart. Your little brother tragically died at the age of 4. Your mother had a tragic series of miscarriages. You became their whole world. Your mother was overbearing. You feared to do the same to me. I always thought you had high expectations of me to pick myself and dust myself off when I was hurt, I now know that you didn’t want to smother and shelter me like your mother did. Your light-hearted approach to life always kept me grounded. I could talk to you about anything and you were the perfect comic sidekick to Dad’s straight man. Your laugh is still infectious, you are sometimes silly. But you are tough, your ability to bounce back from anything has inspired me.

You were a great team. Your loyalty to each other was unlike any I had seen. I saw the way you looked at each other and I wish that I had experienced a relationship as loving. It still breaks my heart how disappointed Dad was on your 49th anniversary, he was very sick and predicted (correctly) that he would not get to dance with her on the 50th. He cried that day.

I learned so much from both of you and I credit you for giving me something that I see lacking in today’s world. Values. Thank you for being everything that I value in life; honest, caring, and genuine. Let there be no doubt, you did a fine job.

Your loving son

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As part of acclimating to the much slower pace of my new environment, I have set a mental goal of accomplishing something significant, preferably physical, each day. I will not allow myself to be a couch potato watching 12 hours of TV a day and then go to bed mad at myself. A walk, a brief workout, some yard work does the trick. Just an hour of my day and I go to bed feeling accomplished, if only in a small way. It’s part of dealing with chronic illness, keep challenging yourself.

This morning I stepped out onto the deck and surveyed the trees surrounding the yard, Pretty barren. Yup, today I would do the leaves.

I went inside and threw on Jeans, a Henley shirt, and a heavy sweatshirt. I searched for my headphones, grabbed my phone off of the charger and headed outside. It was a cold day but I knew that once I was moving I would be fine. It is sad that I had to even think about that but as my condition has progressed I have grown sensitive to cold. Just another thing to deal with I guess.

As I head to the garage to grab my gear I look back and see Mom in the picture window. She looks happy. Happy that someone is there to help her with the yard since her husband died. Happy that she didn’t have to ask me to do it (she never would) and happy that I motivated myself to go out into the cold. I’ve been moping around the house lately and she knows that I need to snap out of it.

The work went smoothly. Clearing leaves is mindless work. I knew that I wouldn’t get it all done today but I could put a good dent in it. Headphones blasted a Spotify playlist into my ears, quieting the roar of the leaf blower. I barely notice the leaf blower going side to side, as if unaware that I was the one operating it, switching hands periodically to ease the fatigue in my forearms. I became fascinated with small details in front of me, like the random leaf that refused to submit to the onslaught of my blower and clung fiercely to the ground before finally yielding. I began to ease into a familiar Zen-like state where I do my best thinking. It happens a lot during yard work. Usually, my mind races and my thoughts barrage me like locusts on a windshield. In this state, they flowed like lava. As I worked I found my problems were right there with me, waiting to be addressed if I had enough yard to handle them all. I was in the right frame to sort them out. I savor and enjoy such moments, they are so very rare.

I have been in a funk lately on the heels of some disappointing medical news. While not normally prone to depression, this news came from so far out of left field that it shook me a bit. And for the first time in a while, I was thinking as if ole Superman had finally gotten himself in deep. I was in my own head thinking about my expiration date. I was feeling bad for myself. But the zest in the crisp Autumn air reminded me of the days when I had unshakeable faith that things would work out. As I worked in my father’s yard I thought of his eternal positivity and envisioned sitting on the wall and talking, like we used to. I thought of my children and how there were so many things I wanted to tell them. I focused on things that I wanted to do, see in my family and milestones to witness. I thought more about life in my years and not of years in my life. I canceled the pity party and committed to change my attitude.

All this from a fall day and a leaf blower? It’s hard to explain. It’s the act of working, which I miss so much. It’s being outside, where I have always been most comfortable. It’s 3 hours of yard work and a significant dent in a huge task. It’s the ache in my muscles. It’s the sense of accomplishment. All of these things showed me glimpses of the kid who stayed outside in the yard, long after everyone else went in. He would stand in the yard arms back, neck back, chest out and let the autumn winds flow all around him. That kid loved life, saw God in everything and knew how to be happy. He would want me to do that again.