quick survey: who here hasn't met my family (or at least know of my family, heard stories about my family, you get the drift)? anyone who hasn't played a game of 20 questions with my mother (except you don't get to ask any questions- sorry, house rule)? oh- and here's a classic one: who hasn't had money slipped in her purse or shoved in their hands just by stepping in the apartment? received thank-you notes for being friends with me? (i'm serious.)
i've always had popular parents. growing up, i'm almost positive i was annoyed by this- or make that embarrassed. "maaahh-om, we're talking!!!" (actually, i have a brief memory of getting mad at her once b/c she was the only mother who wore "cool" clothes!) not surprisingly, and as most kids/teens do, i took such an honor for granted with an eye roll and flip of the hair. but over the years, i easily grew into the compliment- and now i practically brag about it. in college, i enjoyed mom and dad's visits as much as my friends did- i loved showing them off to my roommates and coworkers at the student union desk (or the occasional bball game i'd manage to score tix to). friends would arrange to stop by at some point to visit, and almost everyone managed to score an invite to a dinner out at one time or another.
they know all of my friends names, what they do for their job, where they're from, what's going on in their lives. (it's a running joke that my mom will know everything about you within the first 15 minutes of meeting you.) they know my coworkers and my neighbors, they're invited to almost all of my friends' weddings, they send birthday cards and baby gifts. having guests over to dinner almost always involves story telling. in fact, it was just recently that dad tried to make that illegal getaway at the falls church park & ride lot. and poor mom- such an easy target (and thankfully a good sport). we still give her hell about backing the car into the stop sign or the infamous "cell phone" drama- and those were at least 10 years ago! but dad is an equal souce of comedy- like when he got the Budget truck stuck in the snow from his brilliant scheme to unload my furniture or when he recently got run over by his own lawn mower in the backyard. oh, and if mom allows him to tell them, he has great stories from his college days (my favorite involves the alcoholic house mother, a water hose, and the top floor of the fraternity house.)
but let me try to get to the point. all of this hasn't stopped me from being jealous of those whose homes are crowded with multiple brothers and sisters, with grandparents still alive or that lived close by when growing up. i'd listen enviously to friends' stories of multi-family reunions and birthdays, and coworkers' plans for thanksgiving and christmas festivities with aunts, uncles, cousins, the whole works. the jealousy stems from the size of my immediate family- it's just mike & i and mom & dad (plus a never ending stream of animals.) the extended part of our family lives all over the country- illinois, indiana, california, arizona, iowa. sure, a good excuse to see the countryside, but expensive for a family of 4 to travel so far, and for some reason we have always been the ones to do the traveling. and after our grandparents died, any obligation to see one another seemed to become even less, so this little family of ours became everything.
when my grandparents died, i was still a self-absorbed teenager who could hardly get through my own grief, let alone grasp the concept of how hard it must have been for my parents. but as i've gotten older, i have revisited that time. but instead of thinking about my grandparents, i am thinking about my parents. i'm starting to have some idea, and that terrifies me. my parents have shed the blanket role of "parent" and have taken on these roles that i never imagined possible! i'm learning things about them i never knew before (sometimes way more than i want to know, but that's a story for another day).
as i type this, there's a thought at the back of my mind that keeps pushing its way forward- a little voice that says "but meg, if you're getting older, this means everyone's getting older, this cozy, intimate family won't always be around..." and i can feel my heart start to beat a bit faster.
being diagnosed with a chronic disease changes every single aspect of your life. you can kid yourself all you want (i'm not being critical if this happens to target you- that would be the pot calling the kettle black) but you'd be a liar if you couldn't name at least one thing that has been affected. for me, a realization of and a subsequent shift in the importance of family began to occur. i have this family that stopped their lives to come pick up the pieces of mine. pause. my family dropped what they were doing to come do what i could not. this was mind blowing to me. sure, everyone sees their family as a part of their life. but until that moment, i had never seen my family as my life.
again, that uncomfortable feeling... what am i going to do when- what the hell? i just came to this realization, can't i wallow in the security and support for awhile? like most good things, i didn't have long to do so. the quiet possibility became more of a "slap you in the face-cold water shower-5am alarm clock" reality this spring...
dad was diagnosed with cancer this april. yep, the big C word. prostate cancer. they say that prostate cancer is one of the best cancers to have. well let me ask "they" a question- have you ever had prostate cancer?! who the hell wants cancer in the first place?! the diagnosis hit hard, and all i could think was "NO! You can't do this to me! I can't handle this now!". ok, wait a minute, did i just say "ME"???? how selfish is that?! i was wracked in guilt over this- dad has made sacrifices for me, dropped everything for me, is fighting so hard for my treatment and doing everything possible to aid in my recovery. but when it's my turn to return the favor, to be strong for him, all i can think about are my own feelings of fear! but adding on to the fear and the guilt, was anger. i was so furious with the biopsy results, the pathology reports, the doctor, the universe... is there anything else i can be mad at? it had to be wrong.
and then i began to play the "what if" game. one such what if was what if i was still in dc and dad had called me with the news? most likely i wouldn't have answered my cell phone, so he'd leave a message to call him when i got a chance. in addition to not answering the phone, who knows when i would have listened to my messages- maybe a week? but when we finally did connect, i'd immediately want to come home to spend time with my family. (obviously such a move would not have changed anything, but there's a sense of comfort in such solidarity.) but there's no way in hell i would have been able to- april/may are (2) months of pure hell on my old work team!! the client's annual convention takes place, and if that's not enough, we'd be in the throes of the annual competitive research and presentation in addition to final tv edits for the summer launch. 65 hour work weeks don't mix well with askin my teammates to pick up the slack during my absence. another reason my theory at the top holds true.
but then i said it. i said the phrase that i NEVER say... "it isn't fair!!!!!" (i might have said "this is so f'ed up" too, but for PG rated sake, i'll leave that out.) it's not fair is quite frankly a phrase that is overused, and one of my pet peeves besides that (along with "i'm bored").
i never use this complaint in regards to my own life, but it didn't stop me from smacking it down instantly when it came to my father. wasn't it a more appropriate time than ever? i felt the unfairness of the situation seeping into all of my pores, swirling around over and over again- it was all i could think of!!! hadn't he gone through enough in the past year? what had he done to deserve such treatment? okay, okay, i'll admit- being his daughter it's possible i could be a tad biased. but here's the thing. he's quite simply the best man i have ever known. he's fair, he's kind, he's generous, he's loving, he's genuine, he's humorous, he's intelligent, he's hard-working, he's honest, and what i most respect about him- he rarely speaks a bad word about anyone. (unfortunately i didn't inherit this character trait, since i am the first to scream and rant about whoever pissed me off most recently.)
some type of alternate universe role reversal must have gone into effect, b/c i had a glimpse of what it feels like to be a parent. a moment of overpowering and intense realization that the importance of your life suddenly pales in significance to someone else, and an understanding of how my parents must be going through with my ongoing struggle against the MS. as far as dad's condition is concerned, there is nothing but positive outlooks on his next steps- he's a candidate for any of the treatment plans, he's chosen a nationally respected cancer center to work with, and he has no outward physical signs or complaints of the diagnosis. but it made things very real for me this spring, and all the more appreciative of this "short straw, a time continuum explosion-esque, accident of epic proportions type of thing."
“No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?”
-Elbert Hubbard
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