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	amberspace				"Been there. Been that."	Last updated on 2006.08.10.

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ramblings

Cycle of Life
2002.10.12

This rambling isn't about me. It's about a couple of people who I hold dear to my heart. Sorry if this is depressing. If you don't want to read something that tugs on your heart strings, I highly suggest you go elsewhere and read something happier.

My parents are getting older. They're in their 60s now and it's really showing. It doesn't help that they're in pathetic shape. I mean p-a-t-h-e-t-i-c. My Mom is extremely obese, diabetic, bad knees, bad back, and a myriad of other little problems. My Dad is fairly overweight, terrible cholesterol, has one good eye, and eats like a college kid. My parents are hardly the same as they used to be. I mean, they're still my parents and inside they have the same core personality. But their outside selves have become dilapidated frames of fat and atrophied muscle. They have no energy, no zest. Long gone are the days we used to go out and play tennis, or walk in the park, or play Monopoly, or even travel. They just watch the world go by from that little glowing window we call the "television".
      I know that they are getting old and with that age brings all of Nature's usual problems. But I see that they have options about how to go about their lives and they are stubbornly ignoring them! It's so hard to watch my Mom literally eat herself to death. And my Dad? Well, he knows he could take better care of his teeth but refuses to do so and wonders why he pays the price of surgeries, root canals, and bridges later on. And both of them, when they get sick they stay sick forever.
      Worse yet, I'm at a point in my life where I really need them. Need. Their decisions affect me in several ways. They cause me distress because I know that they are slipping into that abyss of deteriorating health. They cause me loneliness because I feel that they really aren't there in my life anymore---they are so without energy we can't really talk meaningfully. In a way I'm deeply saddened.
      Why does this have to happen now? Why? Why, when I'm at a point of turning my life around do they have to throw theirs away? Am I so selfish to ask that they try harder to be good to themselves? Is it out of line for me to care this much for them? Really, is it?

I've got a Tequiza in hand right now. I've never tried it. I hate alcohol. Blue agave? Feh. I don't even taste it. It's all beer to me. I hate beer too. But right now, for some reason, this tastes pretty good. It's a kind of comfort food, if you will.

It's out of my control and certainly not my responsibility to govern their lives. It's just that they have given me a lot in life and I hate for them not to be around to see the fruits of their labor and investment. I especially find it wasteful that we've renewed our relationship in recent times. I get along with my parents well. We have mundane conversations about nothing in particular, we eat together, we go for short sightseeing trips. We're closer now than ever before, I think. We're speaking on the level of adults, not parents down to children. And now they're slipping away. They're not even trying to help themselves, really. It's like I've thrown them a lifeline and they're just saying "no thanks." Do you know how frustrating it is to watch them just whittle away to nothing?
      And so I'm sad as I reminisce about who they were. Whenever I talk about them in the present tense it just makes me more sad. I want my parents back.

And, so I type this letter to them now:

Mom, Dad,

I sorta need you to hear this. I know we've gone over this in bits and pieces a whole bunch of times, but I'm in a blue funky mood and I need to write because keeping this to myself is bothersome. So, thanks in advance...

I'm depressed. I'm watching both of you age, and I know this is a a part of life as it were, but it just seems to be hitting you too hard. It seems you're in a seriously declining state of health, a kind of never-ending downward spiral to a premature oblivion. I hate it when either of you guys get sick and are out for weeks at a time, or hurt yourselves and it takes forever to recover from them.

I feel so helpless watching both of you these days. I sometimes find myself on the verge of tears because I am just a bystander, and that's all I can be. I don't want either of you to continue to endure this kind of a diminished life. It pains me that the only things we ever seem to do these days are eat, watch TV, and talk. We no longer go for walks, play tennis, or enjoy an afternoon in the park. Life just kinda seems to happen at a distance through the television or beyond the windows of our cars.

I'm not trying to lambaste your life choices. It's your life. Lots of things aren't exactly in your control either. But there are things in your control. I see that there are options that could be attempted. I think there are ways out. And to see that these opportunities aren't seized seems to me to be such a waste.

I want some semblance of the old Mom and Dad back. I realize that I probably can't and shouldn't ask for it, but I'm a selfish kid. I want you guys to be around as Connor and I mature. I'd like you to be able to enjoy our successes and experience the hard work that you guys put into us. And I feel that in recent times you and I have developed a stronger relationship than I could ever remember hence. So, I would very much like you both to be around now and into the future.

On an even more selfish note, you both know I'm going through a very trying phase in my life. I'm straightening out a lot of things, and I finally feel that I'm winning the war against my psyche. Life is turning around towards being more positive than negative, and I wouldn't mind if you can help guide me along the way. Now more than ever I value your presence.

So for my birthday, I don't want anything. Not even for Christmas. I just want both of you to be there and maybe we can enjoy those days. That's stuff that money doesn't buy and that's the stuff I enjoy. So, if possible, please take care of yourselves.

I'm sorry this wasn't a happy letter. It's just that I have things in my heart that I want you both to hear. I didn't think it fair to you that I don't tell you what's going on in my head. So, I'd appreciate this if you both get a chance to read this and maybe we can talk about it sometime.

Just know that regardless of what's happening, both of you are in my thoughts.

Thanks a million,

(Boy name)