When Parents Die

The year twenty-twenty will be remembered as the year of the Corona Virus. The people of the earth, not just individual nations will remember it for this. I will remember it for this too, as well as the year I lost both of my parents in the span of eight months.

My parents were old. My father was ninety-two and my mother was ninety-one. My siblings and I had them for a much longer time than many of our friends had theirs. Some of my classmates had lost one or both of their parents by the time they were out of high school. My siblings and I were very fortunate.

They did not die of the Corona Virus. The organs in their bodies had just worn out. It’s a strange, almost scary thing to watch parents age. The first time you see them and realize they are old, you also realize that one day, you too will be that old. It can take your breath. My parents both died in their own home, in the living room.

How you age matters. My mother even though she had a double bypass in her late seventies aged better than my father. My father's quality of life escaped him around eighty-five, perhaps even before then. Those last seven years were difficult to watch, as he lost the ability to see, hear and get around. Sometimes death is cruel and it makes you wait.

My mother was still doing backflips off the diving board at seventy-two and it was only after my father died that her quality of life quickly slipped away. She was still able to finish a few bed quilts for the last of her great-grandchildren and a few more paintings people wanted. My mother was not one to leave things undone. Most people would tell you there was nothing my mother couldn’t do.

The evening before she died she wrote out her weekly grocery list. Only a couple of hours prior she had said to me, “I will see you Chuck. It may be quite a while this time, but I’ll see you,” before laying down for the last time. I will always remember my mother was accepting, and not at all afraid. She was ready, it was her time. That was Sadie, no one would have expected any less.

My father had regrets he hadn’t reconciled with. I think this makes it harder to die. He told me this once near the end when we were talking. He said, “there are things I would do differently.” I knew what he meant. My father drank a lot. It had a huge negative impact on all of our lives. In the end, he regretted that. His own father was the same, he was a hard drinker and mean. He died afraid and confused, at the age of ninety-four, in a nursing home.

I got sober when I was thirty-three. My father was sixty-three. I was not sure what he thought about that at the time. How could he tell me not to drink when we had been drunk together many times. Sometimes at family gatherings, after I was sober, someone would inevitably say, give Chuck a beer, to which my father would respond, “Chuck doesn’t need a beer.” I realized then that my father was glad that I had quit. That he did not want me to drink again. That he respected what I had done, what he couldn’t do, what he didn’t do.

He was not comfortable with displays of affection like many men of his generation that I knew. It wasn’t until near the end that he could bring himself to say, “I love you too,” when I would say, “I love you Dad.” My parents were not perfect, still I learned from them.

My father, without knowing it perhaps, taught me how to be a better parent. I am not a perfect parent but I am a better parent than he was because he taught me what not to be. He also taught me that in times of trouble it was important to show up for your child. He did this for me on several occasions. It was the one way he could show without saying it, that he was my father and I was his son, no matter what I did.

I tell my two children often, that I love them. I do, and it’s important that they know that. So if you have children tell them. My mother would tell us, your father loves you, he just doesn’t know how to say it. She would stand up for Bob to the end, even though she had shouldered the greatest share of the responsibility for raising me and my ten siblings.

My parent's house was the gathering place for my family, and my mother was the reason for that. My father was a man of few words except after he had a few beers. I seldom would stop if I thought only he was home. On the occasions, I did I would talk and he would give one-word answers. Following an awkward silence, I would ask about something else and he might say, “I don’t know, you can ask your mother.”

I dream of them both. My mother more often. She was the glue that held us all together. We all knew that when she died we would not see each other that often. The messenger app on Facebook is the go-to spot. It’s a group message so those who want can connect. In-person not so much.

Sometimes I still think I will go tell my mother about this or that and then suddenly realize I can’t. I had a dream recently with them both together in it. I said to them, “you know you both died.” My mother said, “well aren’t you glad we’re here now.” “Yes,” I said, “but now we will have to go through it all again.” End of the dream! I know we can’t control what we say in our dreams, yet I still felt bad when I first woke up and remembered.

I’m sure they understood. Even though I had my parents for over sixty years, it’s still weird not having parents. It’s like having the umbilical cord cut all over again, but this time there is no physical sign of it. I think it probably feels like someone who has lost an arm or a leg. I can sense them, feel them, and yet they are not there.

There is a void, an emptiness that can’t ever be replaced. On the other hand, it has also taken away a little more of the mysteriousness of death. My parents have crossed over. They are on the other side. Where ever that may be, they are there. It no longer appears as a place of malevolence but of peace.

I am not sure if I will ever see them again. I am not a religious person. I try to practice Taoism. I do know that as long as I am alive they are alive in me and there are lessons I continue to learn from them.