On the importance of family:
For three days, it didn’t matter what the healthcare negotiations were, it didn’t matter how my retirement fund was doing given the Dow rising above 10,000 for the first time in a year, and it didn’t matter if some crazy right-wing lunatic made stupid remarks about the President. The only thing that mattered was making sure that my mother was recovering, had plenty to drink, got her medicine when she needed it, and could keep her food down.
I left home at 17. To be honest, I’d never really had a “home” home since I was about 14. I had bad parents. They got so wrapped up in hating each other and being selfish, that I somehow slipped through the cracks. I bounced around between my newly-wed sister’s (who was also a new mother), my mom’s, my dad’s, and other places when people decided that I was either welcome, or welcome back. So, as you can see, home and I parted on not so good terms.
That was 8 years ago. Yes, I have a lot of open wounds that still need to be healed, especially with my parents. There are sections of my life growing up that have troubled me, but my mother says she doesn’t remember them.
For the last three days, none of this mattered, either. I don’t understand how sometimes people get so upset at their families that they forget how much we need each other. Who else is going to help you recover after major surgery? Who else will be there to help you do your physical therapy, even if that means accidentally flashing your son every so often? Who else is going to cut up your food for you and keep the barf bucket nearby, because the anesthesia still hasn’t completely worn off?
Family.
I think many of us have been wronged and it’s so easy to hold a grudge. I just never understood the point. I enjoyed the last three days taking care of my mother in the hospital. In a way, it’s kind of ironic. I left home to go to college and now have a stable, salaried job with great benefits including flexible vacation time so that when my mother needs somebody to come to the hospital down in my neck of the woods, I can do that. I can do that, because she was a not-so-great mother which drove me out of town vowing to never look back. Now, I’m wishing I could be back home so I could help take care of her a bit more (she went home today…a full day ahead of schedule!)
Family may not be perfect, but I feel like we know our place. We might have some bumpy roads down the line, but these things usually have the ability to be forgiven, or else we’re going to die very alone and very sad. That’s not what I want.
I can’t wait to start a family of my own and just pray that they don’t ever want to leave me in the dust like I did my parents. But also pray that if they do, they know they can come back, and that they know when they need to come back.
1) This is well said and rare in our confrontational, “I’m not dealing with this” generation.
2) NTKG, you are, and probably will be, happier in life than most of our peers.
3) NTKG, will you marry me? ;)
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