olderdadyoungerchild

Regrets … I’ve had a few … The older I get, the fewer regrets I hang on to, not that there were many to start with. I’ve had a great run for many years, and I’m not done yet.

Many ups, many downs. Now I find myself sandwiched between childhood, parenthood, and spouse-hood. While my peers are welcoming grandchildren (and some of those grandchildren are now teenagers), we just blew out 18 candles on Daughter’s cake. I’m certainly not holding out for grandchildren anytime soon, by the way.

My friends with grandchildren have buried their own parents by now. I think it’s a normal coming-of-age experience. It’s been delayed for me. I’m 67 years old and I am fortunate in many ways to still have both of my parents — my 92-year-old father and my 85-year-old mother. They both live in the region of the country I left when we moved down here 7 years ago, about 1,000 miles away.

My father lives in a beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland town. He’s spent the past 40-ish years in this area, and hunted there as a youth with his own father. He’s a Korean War battle survivor, flying helicopters into hot zones and ferrying various brass around the country. It’s only been during recent years that he’s opened up to talk about the accidental crash that killed his two crewmen and left him hospitalized for months.

He’s spent a lifetime on the road, demonstrating, selling and even installing at times. There were colorful part-time jobs taken to support his family — some might say struggling at that time, by today’s standards. My young mother was consumed by their second child, a profoundly retarded/handicapped (we used to say, “brain damaged” ) child back during a time there were very few support services for families with such children.

Anyway, again I digress. The point I’m struggling to make is my own regret that my Mother is no longer able to recognize what an incredible, brilliant, opinionated, assertive person her granddaughter – my Daughter – has grown to be. Her Mother and I agree there’s a bit of a wild streak from my Mother quite evident in her granddaughter. Examples? She’s carried signs at protests and speaks out for fairness and equal rights. She challenges the thinking of her generation. She’s outspoken on hot button issues and was tossed from TikTok at one point,

Daughter has many memories of her grandmother, but I think my favorite might be the times they would ride in my Mother’s car and sing out tunes by The Beatles, Carly Simon, and the Allman Bros. Daughter still remembers the words to these songs, which she will forever associate with my Mother.

My Mother and her (late) husband were practicing Quakers who spent hours upon hours protesting war at the county courthouse. She spent a lifetime working to promote racial quality and fighting injustice. She believed in the power of positive thinking. I’m talking about her in the past tense, but now she lives in a memory-care facility as her mental state deteriorates. There’s been a change in my Mother’s care environment, based on deterioration she is experiencing.

It seems that Mother and Daughter are on a similar course. As these qualities fade in my Mother, they blossom anew in Daughter. It’s a gift I never anticipated.

I regret that my Mother isn’t capable of appreciating what a great young person her granddaughter is turning out to be. Little rough around the edges, certainly, but so was her grandmother. I also know her granddaughter wishes her grandmother could see her now. She would be so proud!

My Mother’s older Sister agrees: there are many distinct similarities in their personalities. She watched my Mother growing up — married at 18, a mother soon after, and clinging to the bar of the front roller coaster car for the next 60 years. Throughout it all she did manage to get herself through school, right up through her master’s degree. She was a lifelong believer in education and she and her husband took higher education courses into their 70s.

You could say many of Daughter’s experiences involved or grew out of a family wild streak. It’s a wild streak that runs from my Mother straight through me (ooh, that’s another story) into my Daughter. I know that my Mother would be proud of the person you are growing up to be.

That would be my regret, as Daughter grows and matures. Sorry you’re missing this, Mom. You’d love it!