The Unexpected. . . Part 2

We like to think that we know our parents.  The people who brought us up, cared for us when we were young, argued with us in our adolescents.  We just don't expect any surprises from them as we age.  Perhaps we look as them as these immutable, inflexible beings who will always treat us the way that they always have.  While we expect ourselves to grow and change, to move beyond who we are today and to strive to be better, more whole humans, we, well at least I, do not expect the same from the parental unit.

I expect my mom to be picky in her eating habits.  I expect her to get anxious if too much clutter is residing on the kitchen table.  I expect her to move with a lack of confidence in her being.  I expect her to shy away from people.  I expect her to take her life and those lives around her much too seriously, failing to live in the moment. 

From Dad, I don't expect much emotion, unless it is embroiled in the discussion of my errant political views.  I expect Dad to definitively direct the action in the movie of his and my mom's lives, especially when it involves managing the simple day to day activities. 

As a couple who has been together 47 years, I have come to expect a lack of intimacy.  The connection I have come to expect is based more on my mom's agreement with my dad's political and financial views. Yet, I expect that they love each other, and that they love me.

However, my expectations of them, and my perceptions of them as individuals, as a couple, and as my parents have been tossed in a million different directions.

Over the last several weeks, my sisters and I had come to help take care of my Dad after he had some ambulatory issues.  Ironically, these issues merely illuminated how severe some of my mom's memory problems were.

And that brings us back to expectations.  Would I have expected my mom to go and sit next to a woman, smile at her and make small talk at church when all other pews were open?  Would I have expected her and my dad to hold hands multiple times in church? Would I have expected both my mom and dad to start singing along with Andrea Boccelli's "When I Fall In Love" with my mom subsequently asking my dad to dance and then kiss him when they were through?  What about getting both my parents to dance and jump around with me to Neal Diamond's "America" and "Forever in Blue Jeans" in their kitchen? 

We went to church today and part of the homily was that we waste too much time dwelling on the past and worrying about the future.  The present is all we have.  Sadly enough, the present is all that we are going to have with my mom.  Holding her children in her arms, watching her grandchildren blow out birthday candles on their third birthday, or dancing with her husband in their kitchen at dusk on a humid summer night will all be forgotten. While I expect that the next few years are going to be really painful, I also expect that I am finally awake (I love you pointz) to see the blessings of the present.