I watched the show Sunday Morning, well, Sunday morning, and Ben Stein closed the episode talking about saying 'thank you' to your parents. He was visiting with women at a drug treatment facility and they were talking about how wonderful their parents had been to them; how they had never stopped loving them or fighting for them through their whole ordeal. He asked the women if they'd ever thanked them. They replied that they had apologized over and over again but don't ever remember saying 'thank you'. "I don't remember but I must have at least once, right? ....no. No, I don't think I ever did."
It was a V8 moment for me. I thought about how my last blog entry was about giving thanks and even listed a few things I was thankful for. I even mentioned my mother but not to say that I was thankful for her, but thankful for her recovery from cancer. Of course I'm thankful for her! But when have I ever actually thanked her or my father?
Thanked them for just being my parents. Thanked them for being happy I was born into an already crowded family of six children and welcoming me home as if I'd been the first. Thanked my mom for balancing the checkbook to the penny every month while the two of them pinched said penny so we never went without (much)...the checkbook that held the money my dad made trudging off everyday to his job in NYC. Thanked her for cooking, yes cooking me breakfast every morning of my childhood and for greeting me every day when I arrived home from grammar school. For the beautiful home my parents made for us. For taking care of me in sickness and in health, for better and for worse (and there was plenty o' worse!), until my adulthood released them from servitude. However, it didn't release my then-widowed mom from saving my butt financially on more than one occasion! Thank you for that, by the way!
But it's more than just what they did for us; it's that they did it without hesitation and without including us in any of their worries. We didn't grow up with a lot of money. My dad made a nice living but with all those dang kids running around...well, when there was a chance to earn a bit extra working in my grandfather's office or working on income taxes for people, he jumped at the chance. I always thought he did it just to help them out! So thank you for allowing me to spend my youth in the bliss of financial ignorance! I had so many other things to worry about like boys and ...boys and ...boys.
Ben Stein talked about how for decades parents are our servants and we their masters. It made me chuckle because I'm constantly telling my kids I'm not their servant. But we are, aren't we? Yes, I am their mother, their teacher, their taskmaster, their nurse, their housekeeper, their cook, their seamstress, their launderer, their landscaper (well, okay, that's Dad), etc. But we are also their confidant, their pillow, their rock.
I can assure you I don't do the grunt stuff as willingly as my parents did (or appeared to do). Don't get me wrong, my parents were NOT Father Knows Best meets Donna Reed and there were plenty of times we thought they were cheap and unfair and downright cruel. I'm sure there were plenty of times when they thought they were too...along with thinking we were spoiled brats!
See, here's the thing. I never got to thank my father. I always thought he'd be around. Period. As a teenage it never even entered my mind to thank them for their hard work on my behalf. Now that I've lived a good portion of my life and see the atrocities that call themselves parents, and feel the pinch and euphoria of parenthood firsthand, I regret having missed the chance. I'm not going to wallow in guilt though; I was young and narcissistic just like many if not most teens out there. That much hasn't changed....I'm talking today's teens, not my narcissism!
So thank you Mom. Thank you for being there. Thank you for loving me unconditionally. Thank you for saying "no". Thank you for fighting for me, for praying for me, for being genuinely happy when you answer my phone calls. I love you.
~Eileen Cassidy Bishop
No comments:
Post a Comment