Monday, November 28, 2011

Momma, I'm Coming Home

More words from the Fiery Trail. I told you that reading this book is like eating a fine meal. It continues to amaze me with the beauty of the words, the precise way that situations and emotions and philosophies and life itself are captured.
Describing the feelings of a mother and father on the day their daughter left them to wed her husband. "The days were to come and go for them, with an emptiness they were under compulsion to fit into the pattern of their lives........."
I fell out of the recliner and rolled around on the floor like an errant bowling bowl when I read those words.
When Keith graduated college he moved back home for a year and he brought with him his new girlfriend Emily. Suddenly the house was ablaze with youthful energy and a gender ally for Carol.
Keith, Emily and Craig under the same roof.
Strangely enough, about a year later all three of them moved out on the same weekend. Keith and Emily to their first apartment, Craig to Keene State.
That first night alone, Carol and I were devastated. It was if a skilled but evil surgeon had surgically removed the light from our souls. The house was still and we were down. Way down.
But we were under a compulsion to fit into the pattern of our lives this emptiness. We had no choice.
You want choice in your life. You want to make decisions. You want to feel that you are in control, that you are consciously moving forward, that your life is yours to do with as you wish.
Truth is, for most of us, about 1% of your life is within your control. The percentage increases as your income bracket does. In my case that means that 1/2 of 1% is within my control.
You can't control your kids and that's the way it should be. Little birdies have to fly. My parents came from the enforced school of family commitment. I moved 30 miles away from home the year I was married, and 100 miles away eight years after I was married. We were expected to visit for Sunday dinner every Sunday. This meant from NH we were driving 1 and 1/2 hours each way for Sunday dinner every week. With two young uns in tow. We would drive down for Christmas Eve, come home that night and drive back on Christmas day. If we didn't do these things there was shouting, anger and guilt creation.
This did not make me feel closer to my parents. It made me resentful. Obviously I didn't have the guts to stand up to them for a long while, and when I finally did, refusing to drive down one Christmas Eve, it was all out war.
As much as I would like to see my sons and their women every week I know I cannot demand it. I learned that lesson. So we enjoy them when we can. Luckily they both live within shouting distance so we are not completely abandoned.
But even after all these years there is an emptiness. Carol and I have our own rhythms now, we live our life as we started it, a party of two. It is richer now than then because we have the memories, the child rearing years that filled us with joy and pure unadulterated happiness. And the family has expanded to include Emily and Karen which has added to our pride.
But just because we were compelled to fit this emptiness into the pattern of our lives, it just becomes a part of your existence. It doesn't go away. You dribble along in life and don't think about it every day, then Thanksgiving comes around and your family explodes around you in laughter and conversation and then, ten seconds later, the house is quiet. And you think "Goddamn it, I miss my sons."
It's always all about words with me. When I come across words put together in a way to capture my exact feelings, I am overwhelmed.
I am going to write them out one more time. Every parent knows this feeling. It is natural and it is hard. I have to end with this quote because I cannot say it any better.
"The days were to come and go for them, with an emptiness they were under compulsion to fit into the pattern of their lives."

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