I have been an orphan for many years now. My mother died when I was about thirty-five years of age, with two young children. My dad died about twenty years later. I look at my friends who still have one or both of their parents "with" them and I envy them. I am aware that both of them will be with me 'til the day I take my last breath, which makes me highly aware of my presence in the lives of my children and grandchildren.
It is kind of weird......I really miss my mother - on an almost daily basis - on some level. It is as if I am wrapped - surrounded if you will - by her but I think of my dad more often. This may not make any sense to the reader, partly because it hardly makes any sense to me. I can explain it but I do not understand it.
One of the reasons I ache for the presence of my mother because she was the one who listened. She didn't care if I was mad, sad, or glad. She always listened and did not judge me or my litany of complaints, whatever topic they coincided with. I could call any time, day or night, like I did once in California in the middle of the night, when my ear drum broke as a result of an ear infection. My mother serves, yet today, as an example to me of what a parent is for. Listen dispassionately and love unconditionally. My mother's memory is everywhere for me, whether it is in her recipe box and cookbook, the Oneida stainless steel flatware that she faithfully collected for me beginning in my childhood that I still use today, her sewing machine that sets behind me in my office, or the ceramic Christmas tree that will soon adorn a table in our sun room.
My dad is ever-present, heavily associated with activities like eating, cooking, cleaning and, of course, sitting in his two favorite chairs which get used each and every day. (One by me and one by Cranky Kitty) Dad's food preferences were unique and he was highly opinionated in what he would eat (which was such about everything) and how it was prepared and in what it was served. Dad loved his food and expected that nothing was ever thrown away and no one wasted any morsel. Whenever we eat meat with a bone in it, both Capt. Cook and I remark that my dad "would love chewing on this bone", as any bone he ever met was cleaned "to the bone".
Dad was also the cleaning sargent in my "growing-up" home. I do not think he ever cleaned a thing but he expected me to clean everything to a like-new sheen. To this day, I cannot clean a surface and leave a spot of any kind on it. Dear-Old-Dad left me with a life-long obsession to wipe surfaces to a spot-free condition, although this obsession has not translated to dust-free wood floors. As you might imagine, this obsession works both for and against a person.
Parents. Every person has them - for only-God-knows how long. If you are lucky, yours will be with you until you are "long in the tooth". If you are not so lucky, then you have your memories. Unlike our parents, memories last forever.
Ancora imparo
