A few weeks ago as I was sitting in traffic, scrolling through radio stations, I caught an artist spotlight featuring Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and paused there to listen to a few songs. I can never hear “Teach Your Children” without remembering my dad sitting on the edge of the couch strumming his guitar and singing this tune. From time to time his friend Howard would bring over his banjo and the two would play classics from The Marshall Tucker Band, The Beach Boys, and of course The Sparkletones; the sound coming from those instruments was absolutely hypnotic. Mostly, though, my dad would bring out his guitar on that rare Sunday afternoon when he wasn’t catching up on chores or tending to the demands of his kids (especially the youngest—she always has been a high-maintenance one!).
When I reached my destination, I pecked out a quick text to my dad, telling him that I’d heard music that reminded me of him and that I missed him. What I didn’t tell him is how evocative the melodies were to me, bringing back memory after memory of those small moments in youth that seem to have shape-shifted with the passage of time. Alice Walker wrote that while the common sentiment is we cannot cross the same river twice, we actually can’t even cross the same river once; the water rushes around and past us in such a way that it changes with each step. I know that the perception of an event differs from person to person, but what has shocked me repeatedly in life is how the same event from my youth can appear so different to me when I revisit its memory as an adult. What happens in our childhood remains forever suspended in amber, but each life experience we collect causes us to perceive that time with new eyes.
If we have the right kind of parents, we’re never aware, as kids, of the sacrifices, suffering, and hardship their lives hold (often as a direct result of us). Indeed, our parents would rather hear us call them “mean,” “uncaring,” “uncool,” or even “the literal worst!” than to know the real reason they make the choices they do sometimes. I’ve always been a little obsessed with making sure my parents are okay; their patience with me being underfoot should have earned them sainthood. I just needed to know they were safe and near. This oddity of mine (which really hasn’t changed all that much!) did not happily coexist with the hours my dad spent at work or travelling. I saw him leaving for work before daylight on days when any medical professional would have ordered him back to bed, and I saw him returning from work after dark, walking as though carrying a 200-pound barbell across his shoulders. It didn’t make sense that he would want to be away from home so long every day, and although travelling the world for weeks at a time seemed exotic and fun (at least in my limited understanding), he left such a void when he did and I couldn’t fathom what it was about home, or me, that would make him stay away for these intolerable stretches.
At that time I couldn’t see the connection between his work schedule and the results of that work: braces on my teeth, new shoes for school, funds for my college education, and the general lack of concern I was blessed with having about how bills would be paid. I could not see that he came to dread going to work, he sometimes worked with people who actively made his life difficult, and he felt trapped in this Sisyphean cycle of trading days of his life for tasks that brought him little joy, aside from knowing his family would never know the struggle that characterized his own childhood.
Mama wasn’t any different; her self-sacrifice not only went unnoticed by her kids, we sometimes even accused her of not doing enough for us! I cringe to remember words I spoke and thoughts I had that placed me squarely in the role of pitiful victim (“Poor me! My mom spent hours sewing new clothes for me instead of dropping $20 on a poorly made, trendy item at the mall.” “How awful, my mom took her whole afternoon preparing a home-cooked meal instead of letting me have frozen pizza for dinner!”)
I remember Daddy giving Mama money as a Christmas gift, $100 that was to be spent on herself. He knew that the other 364 days of the year, any extra money would go to extracurricular activities, trips to the fast food drive-thru, or hair cuts at the “fancy” salon inside the mall for my sister and me. Without fail, the day after Christmas when the best sales of the year occurred, Mama would load her kids in the Chevette and off to the stores we would go. I never gave a second thought to how quickly that $100 of hers vanished on clothes for her daughters, while she never uttered a complaint about the winter coat she wore year after year.
For years I’ve anguished over my youthful lack of gratitude (and to be honest, there have been too many moments in my adult life when I should have expressed much more appreciation) for my parents’ behind-the-scenes decisions that I misunderstood or was just plain ignorant of. Not once have they expected thanks for doing what they believe all parents should do. Those of us who’ve been gifted with parents who have shown up for us, provided for us, and quietly allowed our words or actions that deeply hurt them know we will never be able to fully reciprocate their unconditional devotion. What we can do is live our own lives in a way that shows them their sacrifices were worth it.
PartWolf 