It hit me today that I have an artistic opportunity. The only “art” I can sorta claim as a talent is writing. What I write the best about is my own experiences – ever since I stopped being afraid of people. Well, not true! I’m still afraid of people, but I’ve been able to find faith in people, as well, so that’s made sharing personal thoughts and feelings an okay thing to venture into. Folks respond to reality. It’s who we are.
I think I’ll have to write a book…a memoir of sorts over the course of, what I hope to be, many years. I have the title, the opening page and the closing page all finished.
An Unlikely Couple: The Widower Father and the Divorcee Daughter
How Shared Loneliness Fosters Understanding, Shatters Old Assumptions, and Creates New Horizons.
It starts with today’s text conversation with Dad. This is because it was a good look into our personalities and a little of the natural contention between us. Yet also part of the openness that has developed between us in communication which did not exist prior to both of our losses; his loss being a wife of 43 years to cancer, while mine being my role as a wife after 11 years to diverging paths.
Chapter 1
Fostering Understanding
DD: BTW, church on Sunday. You have nice clothes?
WF: Nice enough
DD: Hmm, I will determine.
WF: Grampa’s can go in shorts if they want to.
DD: No not this service. Slacks and polo maybe. Grampa still has to look daper.
WF: God doesn’t care as long as you worship.
DD: I am new in the church and I don’t want to be known as the divorcee with the eccentric father just yet…That makes me slightly un-dateable.
WF: Go to work and quit worrying about it.
Chapters 2-Many Other Chapters
Shattering Old Assumptions and Creating New Horizons
These chapters in the middle will describe our adventures throughout the world. How I became paranoid about keeping him safe on the Paris subway system but got to sit lazily together in front of Notre Dame at an artisan bread festival. How we both fell in love with contemporary, Renaissance, and ancient art in London museums and both remained severely handicapped about <<Look Left << and >>Look Right>>. How a small town in Germany gave both of us much needed rest and time for contemplation at the end of the first year without Mom – where, on the anniversary of her death, we were floating down the river Rhein relishing the site of steep vineyards and old castles. These chapters will describe our journeys with the rest of the family when all our vacations for two years were meeting for extreme-sport obstacle course races. And how we discovered that we love Savannah for the exact same reasons, most notably our love of flowers and old, intricate, and smart architecture. Through our self-discovery in aloneness, we will have the opportunity to look at each other in a new light and with new compassion. And then, then we will be able to help each other move forward…
Final Chapter
The Promise
“You have to take care of him,” she looked at me with wide eyes from her hospice bed. She did this now when she was saying something serious. It was almost as if she had to make a great effort to get a complete thought conveyed to me and for some reason she had to push her head and face forward, opening her eyes with intensity.
“He doesn’t know how to.”
It was at that moment that my life changed forever. After knowing my parents for 38 years, I understood for the very first time that the assumptions I’d made about my parents’ relationship was false. When that happens, pretty much everything that you ever knew kind of disappears. As if the world lied to you.
My father needed my mother. My mother needed to take care of my father. This was who they were. I had always thought the traditional role my mother played as his wife was forced upon her by society, by the times she was raised. And partially by my father because of his expectations. Yet, this was not the case. My mother took it upon herself to care for this man, because she believed he could not live without her. For the first time ever, I thought, “Like mother, like daughter.” And that changed my perspective on my father, my mother, my own marriage, and me.
Dad has always been, in my mind’s eye, the figure of extreme strength, perfectionism, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, and man-with-the-plan workaholic. Yet, I call Dad the quintessential existentialist, which I am not wrong about. I started to see at that moment, and subsequent times afterwards, that this made him vulnerable in many ways. He trusts easily, while Mom did not. He spends freely, while Mom did not. He thinks of each moment as it is happening and lives within it, while Mom thought constantly of consequences, missing living within many moments. She was the rock, the stability of the family, while Dad is the wanderer, the dreamer…the needy one.
“I will, Mom, I will.” And my life has changed forever.
-- The End --
I think I’ll have to write a book…a memoir of sorts over the course of, what I hope to be, many years. I have the title, the opening page and the closing page all finished.
An Unlikely Couple: The Widower Father and the Divorcee Daughter
How Shared Loneliness Fosters Understanding, Shatters Old Assumptions, and Creates New Horizons.
It starts with today’s text conversation with Dad. This is because it was a good look into our personalities and a little of the natural contention between us. Yet also part of the openness that has developed between us in communication which did not exist prior to both of our losses; his loss being a wife of 43 years to cancer, while mine being my role as a wife after 11 years to diverging paths.
Chapter 1
Fostering Understanding
DD: BTW, church on Sunday. You have nice clothes?
WF: Nice enough
DD: Hmm, I will determine.
WF: Grampa’s can go in shorts if they want to.
DD: No not this service. Slacks and polo maybe. Grampa still has to look daper.
WF: God doesn’t care as long as you worship.
DD: I am new in the church and I don’t want to be known as the divorcee with the eccentric father just yet…That makes me slightly un-dateable.
WF: Go to work and quit worrying about it.
Chapters 2-Many Other Chapters
Shattering Old Assumptions and Creating New Horizons
These chapters in the middle will describe our adventures throughout the world. How I became paranoid about keeping him safe on the Paris subway system but got to sit lazily together in front of Notre Dame at an artisan bread festival. How we both fell in love with contemporary, Renaissance, and ancient art in London museums and both remained severely handicapped about <<Look Left << and >>Look Right>>. How a small town in Germany gave both of us much needed rest and time for contemplation at the end of the first year without Mom – where, on the anniversary of her death, we were floating down the river Rhein relishing the site of steep vineyards and old castles. These chapters will describe our journeys with the rest of the family when all our vacations for two years were meeting for extreme-sport obstacle course races. And how we discovered that we love Savannah for the exact same reasons, most notably our love of flowers and old, intricate, and smart architecture. Through our self-discovery in aloneness, we will have the opportunity to look at each other in a new light and with new compassion. And then, then we will be able to help each other move forward…
Final Chapter
The Promise
“You have to take care of him,” she looked at me with wide eyes from her hospice bed. She did this now when she was saying something serious. It was almost as if she had to make a great effort to get a complete thought conveyed to me and for some reason she had to push her head and face forward, opening her eyes with intensity.
“He doesn’t know how to.”
It was at that moment that my life changed forever. After knowing my parents for 38 years, I understood for the very first time that the assumptions I’d made about my parents’ relationship was false. When that happens, pretty much everything that you ever knew kind of disappears. As if the world lied to you.
My father needed my mother. My mother needed to take care of my father. This was who they were. I had always thought the traditional role my mother played as his wife was forced upon her by society, by the times she was raised. And partially by my father because of his expectations. Yet, this was not the case. My mother took it upon herself to care for this man, because she believed he could not live without her. For the first time ever, I thought, “Like mother, like daughter.” And that changed my perspective on my father, my mother, my own marriage, and me.
Dad has always been, in my mind’s eye, the figure of extreme strength, perfectionism, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, and man-with-the-plan workaholic. Yet, I call Dad the quintessential existentialist, which I am not wrong about. I started to see at that moment, and subsequent times afterwards, that this made him vulnerable in many ways. He trusts easily, while Mom did not. He spends freely, while Mom did not. He thinks of each moment as it is happening and lives within it, while Mom thought constantly of consequences, missing living within many moments. She was the rock, the stability of the family, while Dad is the wanderer, the dreamer…the needy one.
“I will, Mom, I will.” And my life has changed forever.
-- The End --
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