Not bad for a couple of old folks in their 80's, eh? That's my Mom and Dad. My Dad is 84 and has two kinds of cancer which he has miraculously made temporarily disappear. My Mom is 82 and still hopes to dance in the living room if my Dad can ever remember to come when she calls. :-)My father is a retired advertising man who was a Managing Director of Ogilvy and Mather, where he worked for almost 30 years. That was back when being an ad man was a good thing. During the Camelot years, as they call them. He taught me about honor, and about how to use my curiosity to keep learning, and how to use that learning to develop tolerance and compassion. That is the legacy he will leave behind when he goes.
My mother was a concert pianist before she married and had a family of six kids. Yes, S-I-X! When I think about how hard it is to raise one or two children, I am filled with more admiration for her than I can possibly express. She did it with her eye focused on our becoming good, educated, healthy, talented and productive adults. She never once let her guard down, and if you look at my family you will see her work continues to this day.
I think it is fair to say her job was more important than my father's, although without his we wouldn't have had the music lessons, the sports, nights at the opera or symphony, or the lovely home with a library filled with books and music.
This post wasn't what I sat down to write, but as a writer I know, sometimes you just have to let the juju work and it will be good. Here is why I ended up writing about them. I was thinking about how Parker's final surgery has been postponed to February. Then I was thinking about the blessings that have occurred in my life as a result of that terrible, horrific time spent earlier this year while he critically ill.
Then I thought about how over the past few weeks I have had two complete strangers email me after they found this blog. One had a father, another a husband who was someones son, who were in the midst of very similar experiences with severe pancreatitis. They wrote to tell me my writing had given them peace and comfort and hope. I can't even express to you what that meant to me, to Parker and to James. That what we endured made a positive difference to someone else.
Then I started thinking about the Literacy for Hope Project that was born from my need to do something to give back after what we went through. I thought of how excited my 82 year old mother is to be a part of this, how it has given her a new purpose when she really needed to feel needed again. And I thought about how I will take her on my birthday next week to deliver books to a homeless shelter in New Jersey, because that is how I want to spend my birthday.
And then I thought about how it was my parents who gave me the ability to get so much joy from spending my birthday that way, and I realized how incredibly lucky I was to have those two people, with all their flaws, and all their dedication, at the helm while I was growing up.
Thanks Mom and Dad. It made a difference.
P.S. I just realized with surprise that today is the 14th, which is the 8 month anniversary of the first time the doctors told me to say goodbye to my son. For the first time since then, I didn't spend the days before this with that burning feeling in the pit of my gut. In fact, I might not have even remembered if I hadn't been writing this post.
