olderdadyoungerchild

One day I blinked, and she was 16, buying her own car and paying her own insurance. I momentarily rubbed my eyes, and when my fingers dropped, she’ had turned 18 and signed a lease for her own place (with boyfriend). Getting such a late start on fatherhood, as I did, I guess I must have figured those teen years would sprawl on forever. Turns out those years have gone by even faster than my own trips around the sun, which number 67 at the end of the month.

Writing has been hard. I always tell students and would-be authors to always write about what they know. For me, the past two years haven’t been as much of a creative writing wasteland as they have been a mental toxic waste dump, with a pathway made of land mines leading from one side to the other. There were some very rocky times with Daughter — poor choices made, sloppy parenting, too much “latitude?” – and many times my own Father has laughingly mocked me with the “ain’t payback a bitch” line. I gotta tell you, I know what I did during those years, and this kid’s got me beat at nearly every turn. I don’t necessarily believe in not being fully honest with my spouse — it’s a pillar of our relationship — but there were a couple of incidents over the past 3 years she could spend the rest of her days not knowing about, without missing anything. There were also experiences where Daughter’s private mistakes didn’t need to be shared in this or any other forum.

I have an “OlderDadYoungerChild” Draft file full of false starts, lost journeys, unfocused ramblings. I’ve rescued and delivered a couple of ideas over the past 2-3 years, but it’s been rare.

One of my best readers (my best?) over the years has been my own Mother. Always cheerful, encouraging, praise. The past 4 years has been a slow slide to where my Mother is in long-term care facility for memory loss back in Delaware. It’s cruel and selfish, I’m sorry, but this is truly a memory I do not want to have of her. The past two visits (I live 1,000 miles away) she has not recognized me. She’s been rude. I know this is the disease speaking — not her. I realize that. But it’s difficult to separate that person from the Mother I grew up with. It is not her. I’ve told people should would rather die than to be left in this condition. Still, even as I write this, I still imagine my mother reading it.

She was a stay-at-home Mom of the early to mid 1960s, and cared in our home for she and my Father’s profoundly handicapped daughter, born three years younger than me. Caring for my “brain damaged” sister was emotionally and mentally torturous. Three was no caretaker for respite. Occasionally, my Father’s parents would watch my Sister for a while we slipped away for a couple of days. This carried its own emotional baggage, as my Father’s Mother had beliefs that harshly conflicted with ours. I also remember an older woman names Mrs. Volk, who provided a safe place for my Sister to stay on occasion. These occasions are so special that these exceptions stand out in memory. We chose activities cautiously (finances the major concern). but we also had found ourselves in environments where we were ostracized as a family for bringing “someone like that to a place like this” (restaurants high on this list). I developed a lifelong empathy for any parents I see in public with a physically and or mentally challenged child. I feel their pain. (Side note: After many peaceful years of private care, we learned our Sister passed away last year. I hadn’t seen her in 50 years).

Again I digress, as I so often do,. The point I wanted to make was now much my own Daughter, As she grows up, reminds me of my Mother. I’m sad because I want my Mother to know what a liberal, free thinker, work-to-right-society’s-wrongs idealist our Daughter has become. It’s in the genes. She is rash, impulsive, emotional, sensitive — and comes complete with a “don’t eff with me attitude”. She’s protested on street corners carrying signs, and blew up Tik-Tok with her radical opinions and observations. My Mother pulled herself up by her stretch socks and went back to school, at first to complete the high school education she abandoned at 18 when I was born. Then, it was on to college. She was a senior during my freshman year at the same state college.

I’ve been re-living my own history, as my Daughter grows into 18 and plans to leave her childhood home. It stirs up memories — and some sludge — of my own experiences as a child and a parent. I remember my need to move out of my parents’ house on my own, which became acute they closer I came to 18. One month after my 18th birthday, I moved into a small basement bedroom in a townhouse with five tenants. I left behind most of my possessions and never looked back. Of course, I was also fleeing a sinking domestic ship, which went fully under not long after my departure. It has been taking on water for years.

Even though Daughter had often talked of moving out, and has made some questionable choices and decisions as a teenager (it’s as if she insists on learning so many lessons the hard way). We figured living on her own (with Boyfriend) was financially out of reach, at least for a time. It still might be. But Daughter knows she has an open and welcome safety net here. She assures us that she and her Boyfriend have crunched the numbers and it all adds up. They’ve pulled their financial belt to its tightest notch: The steady diet of carryout food and leftovers stuffed into the fridge has dwindled, along with nightly visits to the costly kava bar.

Meanwhile, a good portion of her childhood is stashed in storage bins in our garage: Her first toy dump truck, Baby Carson, toys, a ton of “stuffies” — each with its own tale. Her bedroom shall remain as she left it, except for one thing. Here’s a secret: It’s about our Daughter’s “Greenie,” a beautiful and durable baby blanket knitted by a good friend for our baby, now nearly 19 years ago. “Greenie” has been part of our bedtime tradition and family history forever. Just to be on the safe side, I hope Daughter doesn’t mind that I snagged “Greenie,” and the folded blanket lies under my pillow, with 18 years of memories resting under my head == right where they belong..