When I was in my late teens, I remember asking my father when you finally felt 'grown up.' I think I was still in college, or maybe starting graduate school and it was a confusing time in my life. My father has always been my best sounding board and I was frustrated that I felt I still needed his advice. When was I going to stand on my own two feet?
I will never forget his answer. He said he never felt fully 'grown up' until his own parents had died.
I am in my 40s, have a profession, a husband, two teen-aged children, make decisions large and small every single day. There are times when I still don't feel 'adult'.
I have been in south Florida with my parents this week. My father has been very ill. At 85, he is brighter, more articulate, and more incisive than many I know half his age, but he needed a knee replacement and the anasthesia knocked his declining kidney function into needing emergent dialysis. For the past several weeks, I have been coordinating his medical care, trying to get the doctors to talk to one another, trying to plot a course that will give my father the most independence and function as possible. At times, that has put me at odds with his medical caregivers and I have had to put my own fear aside and advocate for a man who always advocated for me.
I have a different answer to my father's question.
You feel fully 'grown up' when you take care of a parent in the way he or she took care of you.
Today, I rode shotgun while my father got in the car as driver for the first time in a month. We drove around deserted local streets and a parking lot. I still vividly remember my father taking me driving as a 15 year old, fresh from driver's ed. It was an odd juxtaposition and one I'm not entirely comfortable with.
I know there will be a day when my parents will no longer be in my life. Maybe on that day, I will understand what my father was telling me so many years ago. Maybe I already understand.
i for one know that at nearly 47 years of age i feel less mature and less grown up than i probably ever have... i have more fears and questions and have no clue what it means to be all grown up...
ReplyDeletei am so hoping it doesn't take death to teach me that lesson,, but as of this moment in time,, i half assed believe your father is right....