Role reversal
I feel very old right now, and very tired. I went out today with my mother.. and she was like a child, like one of my children. She was telling me how lost she was going to be without my father, whom she'd been with for 50 years.. and how glad she was that I was here, so I she didn't have to face things alone.
We were in a chinese restruant, and she started crying right in the middle of sipping a small cup of tea, and chewing on a crispy noodle. It struck me then, that she looked very small and frightened in that moment...innocently afraid of an uncertain future like I had been so many times durring my childhood. So I told her that everything would be alright, no matter what.. and that I would stay here forever and take care of her and dad. I'm never going to leave this place again, until I die. I determined that in that moment, when she looked relieved, and stopped crying, and finished her tea.
I spent a lot of my life running away from this place- this small town, this house where my footsteps at one year old are perminantly recorded in the concrete of the walkway leading to the deck. "Laura Ann Bates" it says; and gives a date that's barely legable anymore, save for the 1971. The footprints are small, and carefully aligned (I must have been lifted down onto the fresh concrete to make the prints there, though I have no memory of it). They are smaller than the palms of my hands now, and perminantly root me to this place. This is -my- place... I will live here, and care for my parents in their later years.. and raise my children here.. and die here, in my old age.
We went shopping after eating, and I thought again about how things had changed. When I was little, I would ask my mother "Can I get this?" , and when I was a teenager and learning to shop for myself, I would ask her "Should I get this?" . Today she showed me things ,and asked "Can I get this for dad? Did the nutrition papers say this was okay?" and "Should I get this chicken? " . My mother trusts my judgement, and depends on me to help her.. that was a startling revilation.
I also realised how much my mother really likes Austin today, in spite of the fact they hardly talk to each other (because Aus is such a quiet person). She told me that it may have taken me a few tries with some bad guys, but I finally got it right, and married a wonderful man. She respects how dependable he is, and helpful around the house, and how steadily he works and how much he loves me.
She also talked some about her childhood... how her family wasn't really a huggy kind of family. I had always thought that I was a huggy sort of person because I learned it from my family.. but she said that everyone just naturally wanted to hug me (it's the charisma thing again) ,even cranky Uncle Leon, who didn't like any other children at all. She also urged me to go back to school, and become a councilor.. because she believes like I do that it is my calling in life to help people. Perhaps she is right.. Jolene called last night, out of the hospital, and doing much better- my advice really helped her, she said. And as I was relating this fact to my mother, and she was saying that I should be a councilor.. my father (who I thought was asleep) said quietly "council me". I never thought my father listened to what I said all that much.. but my mother said he really thinks of me as the smartest memeber of the family (which, with the possible execption of Uncle Leon, I pretty much am).
Yesterday, I spoke to my psychiatrist about my father's impending death. He told me how people find comfort in rituals (such as religion) and I laughed a bit bitterly, and said "What does that mean to someone like me? You know I'm not a ritualistic or religious person". And he smiled a bit, and replied that I didn't need to be, because I was one of those rare few people with a great wellspring of inner strength and spirituality. It helps, knowing that even my psychiatrist believes in my ability to survive this.
We also talked about how much I hate people saying the automatic "I"m sorry". It really grates on me, and I told him that it was because of the whole apologizing for something that was no one's fault that made me irrtable. He chided me for being too much of a writer there, and going with the semantics of the word, rather than the sentiment. He asked me to try and realise the root of such a word as sorry shares relation with the word sorrow. So now when someone says they are sorry, I can realise they mean sorrowful, and not apologetic. I apreciate that insight.
I am both humbled and frightened by these new thoughts.
We were in a chinese restruant, and she started crying right in the middle of sipping a small cup of tea, and chewing on a crispy noodle. It struck me then, that she looked very small and frightened in that moment...innocently afraid of an uncertain future like I had been so many times durring my childhood. So I told her that everything would be alright, no matter what.. and that I would stay here forever and take care of her and dad. I'm never going to leave this place again, until I die. I determined that in that moment, when she looked relieved, and stopped crying, and finished her tea.
I spent a lot of my life running away from this place- this small town, this house where my footsteps at one year old are perminantly recorded in the concrete of the walkway leading to the deck. "Laura Ann Bates" it says; and gives a date that's barely legable anymore, save for the 1971. The footprints are small, and carefully aligned (I must have been lifted down onto the fresh concrete to make the prints there, though I have no memory of it). They are smaller than the palms of my hands now, and perminantly root me to this place. This is -my- place... I will live here, and care for my parents in their later years.. and raise my children here.. and die here, in my old age.
We went shopping after eating, and I thought again about how things had changed. When I was little, I would ask my mother "Can I get this?" , and when I was a teenager and learning to shop for myself, I would ask her "Should I get this?" . Today she showed me things ,and asked "Can I get this for dad? Did the nutrition papers say this was okay?" and "Should I get this chicken? " . My mother trusts my judgement, and depends on me to help her.. that was a startling revilation.
I also realised how much my mother really likes Austin today, in spite of the fact they hardly talk to each other (because Aus is such a quiet person). She told me that it may have taken me a few tries with some bad guys, but I finally got it right, and married a wonderful man. She respects how dependable he is, and helpful around the house, and how steadily he works and how much he loves me.
She also talked some about her childhood... how her family wasn't really a huggy kind of family. I had always thought that I was a huggy sort of person because I learned it from my family.. but she said that everyone just naturally wanted to hug me (it's the charisma thing again) ,even cranky Uncle Leon, who didn't like any other children at all. She also urged me to go back to school, and become a councilor.. because she believes like I do that it is my calling in life to help people. Perhaps she is right.. Jolene called last night, out of the hospital, and doing much better- my advice really helped her, she said. And as I was relating this fact to my mother, and she was saying that I should be a councilor.. my father (who I thought was asleep) said quietly "council me". I never thought my father listened to what I said all that much.. but my mother said he really thinks of me as the smartest memeber of the family (which, with the possible execption of Uncle Leon, I pretty much am).
Yesterday, I spoke to my psychiatrist about my father's impending death. He told me how people find comfort in rituals (such as religion) and I laughed a bit bitterly, and said "What does that mean to someone like me? You know I'm not a ritualistic or religious person". And he smiled a bit, and replied that I didn't need to be, because I was one of those rare few people with a great wellspring of inner strength and spirituality. It helps, knowing that even my psychiatrist believes in my ability to survive this.
We also talked about how much I hate people saying the automatic "I"m sorry". It really grates on me, and I told him that it was because of the whole apologizing for something that was no one's fault that made me irrtable. He chided me for being too much of a writer there, and going with the semantics of the word, rather than the sentiment. He asked me to try and realise the root of such a word as sorry shares relation with the word sorrow. So now when someone says they are sorry, I can realise they mean sorrowful, and not apologetic. I apreciate that insight.
I am both humbled and frightened by these new thoughts.