Parents and Child Becoming Known to Each Other

Being known has always been a stumbling block for me.  I’m unclear where it started but I’ve always been one to hold back just a little piece of me for the sake of protection.  I struggle to release myself completely, yet it is something that I yearn for.  To be known.  So when it happens I am acutely aware of the letting go.  Strangely enough, this has recently happened with my parents.  

When I moved to Florida i knew that I was going to get to know my parents on a much deeper level.  That is to be a given when you enter into the end of another’s life journey.  But my parents have always been a bit of an open book.  I’ve always known the credo by which my father lived and I have always known that my mom is one whose major purpose is to serve to father.   I welcome the new view I now have of both of them.  

I have been gifted with a view into my dad’s gentle mellowing.  It may not even be noticed by others but knowing him as I have for 65 years, I can see the slight movement off of his opinions and the belief in his rightness.  As he becomes more aware that the end is near, he talks more about the logistics that his absence will bring.  This is definitely a gift to me as the executor.  His love for Mom is much more obvious.  He works diligently  to bring her into the financial decision making process, knowing that in a short time, this is a skill she will need.  He is deeply aware that his opinions have interfered with relationships with his children and grandchildren.  He is not willing to change it but the knowing is gift enough for me.  

My mom has revealed herself to be much more stubborn and opinionated than I knew.  She has her own mind although it still remains difficult to share it when your husband has a tendency to argue you down.  However, that does not keep her from trying.  This is where her stubbornness is a good thing to accompany the opinions.

In some ways, I have seen them at their worst as I have become the silent partner as I become the physical muscle to help them accomplish chores around the house.  Everything is a negotiation of sorts.  I keep out of the arguments and work to read the situation to decide when to make a move.  I can clearly see how they operate, how they fight, how they forgive without saying it aloud and move past the hurdle.  Dad rolls his eyes and Mom shakes her head and know that all is right with the world again.

Slowly, ever so slowly, they have also entered into my world.  They came first as advisors to home management.  They definitely had thoughts and opinions about grading the yard, painting the house, updating the kitchen.  I accepted them all and followed most of them but there came a point where I stopped bringing them into the process and simply shared the result.  It came about naturally and all of us accepted it as a necessary step in our new relationship.  With that we moved  just a step away from the father/mother and child relationship.  I will always be their child but they began to see me as an adult outside of that bond.  Now one of Dad’s first questions when we are together is,”What have you been up to?”  And he really wants to know.  I tell him about my comings and goings and the people that I am meeting.  This is new.  It is new that he asks and new that I feel safe answering.  Living long distances apart from each other, this was just something that never occurred.  It felt like too much work to explain the people and things in my life.  An hour a week phone call just wasn’t time to get through the what and the why.  So much was left unsaid and hence unknown.  We could always laugh and joke about my life but I kept it most of it to myself.  At the crux of that was my fear of being judged.  But timing is everything.  He seems to know that his time is short and that the relationship is something more valuable than his ethics or judgement.  So I talk and they listen.  This is new!  I can ask for advice without him first offering it.  Our political conversations haven’t changed much but they will now from time to time ask what I think or what I predict will happen.  And I can answer without them first telling me that I am wrong and why.  

We are becoming known to each other in new and deeper ways.  Everything about it feels good.  There is a sense of softness that has entered our relationships.  I am relieved that I will be able to say good-bye to each of my parents and what will remain is the love and the memories of this time that we had together.  This is a time when we broke the bonds of the parent/child rules of living.  We talked and listened to each other and truly enjoyed being in each others company.  But with that comes the fear that it will make the good-bye harder than it would have been a year ago when our roles were known and rehearsed.  As we let love in we know that the loss of it will be that much more painful.  As that pain ebbs as it eventually will, I will rejoice at the gift that is left behind.  

A Sociologist's View of Inverness

I am a sociology major college graduate.  I am fascinated by human beings and how we interact with one another.  If there is one thing that consumes my thoughts more than anything else, it is self-reflection.  In the last five years I have lived in 4 cities, and 3 states. Santa Clara, San Jose, Vancouver, Washington, and Inverness, Florida.  Every place was different, every city/town was different, as was every state.  But the move to Inverness has set everything on its head.  

I don’t really recall how I reacted to people who were unknown to me as a child.  Being the 3rd of 4 kids, I tended to follow the crowd.  I did whatever I was told or simply followed the lead of my siblings.  When I went to college, I hung with my group - my roommates, my classmates.  Colleges can be very closed societies so I never thought much about it.  After that I was off to Santa Clara and began the work of creating a new home.  I attributed so much of the challenge of building relationships in this new phase of my life to a west coast/California phenomena.  Now I’m not so sure.  Santa Clara is a bedroom town to San Jose and San Jose is a very large city.  I made friends, never easily, but I had a group to which I clung.  Many times I felt alone, without my family nearby but I carried on.  I made friends as a young mother, as a returning college student, as a teacher and co-worker.  I collected my people along the way and rarely let go of them.  We got together for coffee, for lunch, for dinner, or social events.  But the idea of making friends with strangers that you might meet along your meanderings was foreign to me.  I was fascinated by people who could pull this off.  

Californians, at least in the San Jose area, did not make eye contact and there was no idle conversation in the grocery line, so how was it that you start up that initial interchange?  As the years went by, I stopped assessing and evaluating this oddity because it never seems to change.  When I traveled back to Iowa or Florida, I was always struck by the “friendliness” of other locales. 

As I made the move to Vancouver, I experienced much of the same social atmosphere as I had in Santa Clara.  People were a little more friendly but there was always something that was held back.  It seemed that you were granted access to the inner circle with someone else’s membership.  I was freely accepted at my sister’s church because I was with my sister.  But the experience was the same in grocery stores in my neighborhood as it had been in California.  In my reflection at the time, I chalked it up to “west coast” behavior.  

Fast forward to Inverness, Florida, a town of 7,000 people.  Compare that to 200,000 in Vancouver and well over a million in San Jose.  The first thing I was struck with during my first visit was how friendly the people were.  People gain and hold eye contact, they smile, they talk to one another  There is an openness that I have never experienced before.  There is also less attachment to individuals.  You no longer need to cling to your friends to feel accepted so there are fewer coffee and lunch dates.  I have met people in the grocery stores (especially at the deli counter), at festivals, and in churches.  We tell each other our stories; where are you from, what brought you here, how did you find Inverness?  I no longer worry about going anywhere alone and having to introduce myself because I know there is a friend waiting for me there.  I have never felt so welcomed or embraced by a town before.  I bring my eye contact and smile wherever I go and in return I am gifted with friendship, camaraderie, and conversation.  Is it small town/big city or east coast/west coast?  The sociologist in me says it’s the small town experience.  It is the necessary dependence on one another to get your needs met.  In the big city you simply buy whatever you need.  But in a smaller community, everything is not available and at your fingertips.  You have to ask for help or recommendations from those who have been around before you got here.  You learn to appreciate the Inverness that is and was and work to keep pieces of it intact before it is also lost to increased population and indifference.

As I reflect on this, I feel walls around me crumbling.  I see and hear myself starting conversations with strangers and it amazes me.  Who is this woman that now, after all these years, has the courage and comfort to say hello and trust that a return hello and a story will come back to me.  I am still me at my core but this is a better, nicer, more welcoming me.  I no longer have the need to protect myself with my family or friends around me.  I am enough.  I am welcome, appreciated, and making a difference in the lives of even strangers in this, my new community.