Unnecessary

That's how I feel. Unnecessary. At least in the life of my oldest child. I know it has been my (well, our, but what self-respecting mom really gives the father any credit for a job well done?) responsibility since he has been born to raise him to be an independent and successful member of society, a good person, who loves and lives well. I think I've done a pretty good job (okay, we've done a good job). By the way, no one can get out of child rearing without making mistakes and messing it up something, or a lot of things. My son doesn't trust me to follow through with everything, or anything really. That is my fault. I have always wanted to be able to give the world to him, and sometimes I 'promise' things that don't come to pass. He might say I do this frequently, but I know that each of our perspectives is biased. From my perspective I could say that this has built within him a self-reliance and determination to get what he wants, and this has helped him succeed. He would probably say I've disappointed him. Every mother/child relationship that I analyze has flaws in it, and some are complete disasters. I have tried very hard to come out of my child rearing years as close to my children as I can while still remaining their Mom. In our parenting pair, this usually makes me the 'good cop', and this has worked pretty well. And still my children think I know very little about life, my choice in fashion is abominable, and my sense of humor is non-existent. They think I am critical at every turn, and that I ask too many questions. Oh, and that my memory sucks, which it does, sad to say. And they find all of this annoying.

My own mother and I have always had a close relationship. She is a mother beyond reproach. The mom that all of my friends have always loved, a sweet little lady with an English accent. She welcomed all and loves all people. She rarely finds someone she can't get along with, although she does have her opinions of them. She has been supportive of me always. And yet I can still hear criticism in the tone of her voice or the way she asks a question (ooooh, now I get what my kids are complaining about....). I know that I used to feel like a little girl every time I entered her home (sometimes a really good feeling, sometimes not what I needed). I know that too much time with this sweet lady grates on my nerves (just stand up for something and express an opinion for once!). Her niceness becomes annoying. Now, how could I possibly feel this way about a woman who stayed home to raise me and my sister, who provided us with everything we needed and most of what we wanted, who was the 'good cop' in my parents' partnership, the best role model I could have???

I have decided that it is hard wired into the child-parent relationship that kids find their parents annoying and disappointing, critical and laughable, unbearable and stupid, so that they find the impetus TO MOVE OUT AND START THEIR OWN LIVES. Long ago, the impetus was food. Families needed their adult offspring to form their own unit in order to feed themselves. This is no longer an issue, at least within our society. Another reason to leave the nest was privacy and the religious need to make babies (which I still believe relates to back to food, but that's another blog). In some societies and traditions, these needs mean that offspring don't leave, and in some American homes adult families of many generations still live together (again, food. I'm feeling a blog entitled Food coming on...but I digress...). However, even our founding fathers left home because they didn't like the rules. And look how well that turned out!

I may only be justifying the fact that I am feeling very, well, unnecessary lately. And it makes me sad when all I should be is proud and happy that my son has travelled in such a way that he has now been offered a job in an industry he is passionate about, making enough money to support himself and his aspirations. He doesn't need me anymore. I've done my job. I'm almost done with my job with all three of my kids. I think I'll call my mom. Maybe she wants to go to the movies, or shopping. I need her to help me pick out a new pair of glasses. Oh, and I want to find out what she thinks about this beautiful tablecloth I saw at Home Goods.....

Still Learning From My Dad

My dad was born in 1926 Kansas to an evangelical minister and his wife. He grew up in India and Southern California. My grandmother was an amazing woman. She was neglected by her husband, left for months on end with small children in a foreign country, and decided to leave her husband in an era, and religious sect, that more than frowned upon divorce - you were shunned for such an act. Taking in washing, and selling baked goods, she was able to save enough money to pay for passage home from India for herself and her children. She started a new life, and my father grew up with a strong female role model, and later a powerful, big-hearted step father who adopted him and his younger sister. My father was a very bright man, and so far ahead in school when they returned from India that he finished high school two years ahead of his peers. He enrolled in college and the army air corps. Later he completed the Los Angeles Police Academy at the top of his class. He spent 30 years as an LAPD officer, retiring as a Lieutenant. "Mr. Juvenile" is the title he went by. My father was a man I admire greatly for many reasons.

Today my father remembers his partners, playing poker, his first car and his first girlfriend. He remembers a lot about his past, but the present is a shallow, ever shifting pool of mist. When he asks me where Jacob is (my nephew) I know he thinks I'm my sister. I believe, because of his great intelligence, and his efforts to keep his mind sharp (he played cards online up to about 5 years ago), he still uses tools he developed long ago such as referring to his calendar many times a day. When we visit I make sure he writes it in his "brain" as he calls it, otherwise the visit never happened. My sister took him for a car ride on a beautiful, crisp Southern California Saturday recently. He so enjoyed it, and the coffee they bought. He was happy. An hour after she left she received a call from him, and he asked her when she was going to get there. It still brings tears to my eyes.

I was thinking about about how he has to live, literally, in the present. He makes the best of the moment, every moment. There is no depression because there is nothing to regret or to mourn, no anticipation of an empty day or lack of purpose. His moments are his reality. I thought, what a lesson I can learn from that. What does the song say? Live as if you are dying. Live life to the fullest because you don't know how long you have. My dad, due to a disease that robs you of dignity, memory, and the person you are, must live this way. I choose to make happy as many of his moments that I can. I choose to make my own moments happy, every minute of every day.