Unconditional Love
Thirty years ago, I left the nest for good. I was 22 years old, recently graduated from college, and after several lackluster months living back home in Wisconsin with my parents, I made the decision that my opportunities for a real job and corresponding real life would be back in Washington DC, where I had just finished college at George Washington.
When I announced my intentions to my parents, my mom was, as per usual, dramatically devastated. There were many tears and fearful predictions. But I remained steadfast in my plan and, in the early spring of 1988, I moved back to DC.
I hadn’t been there a week when a package arrived from West Bend. Inside was a cassette tape, and a couple of other items. Dad had taken the opportunity to send me a verbal letter. We had done this years ago with his mother, my grandmother, and it was always fun to listen to what she had to say and then record a message back to her.
For whatever reason, I never recorded over that cassette. Last summer, I had it converted to a CD and listened to it for the first time in at least a decade. I was struck by several things. The first was my dad’s very generous nature in letting me (his first born) go, and building me up for the future.
Second, it was clear how he viewed his role with respect to my mom. Some might call it codependency, and maybe it was. But he had signed up for the long haul, and did whatever he could to keep her in some sort of balance. Years and several therapy sessions later, I have come to appreciate all that he did for her. And I have chosen to call it unconditional love.
“As far as Mom is concerned, why, you know, that's kind of status quo. We're just going to have to hang in there and keep her….stop thinking about how bad everything has been, and how awful things are going to be in the future, because the things were bad in the past, and they'll continue and all that. So, I have to keep working on her to keep forgetting about all that."
Lastly and most importantly, I could see his optimism shining through, whether it was for me, himself, my brother, or my mom. He always chose to believe that things would be okay.
“I'm looking forward to a real good year. And I think I'm going to have a good year; I think you're going to have a good year. Mom will have a good year if she decides to have a good year, or if I can talk her into it.
I think you have a very bright future ahead of you. I… every time I think about the resume and those letters of reference, and your positive attitude, I think you've inherited at least some of that from me. And I think you're so right to get back there and retain these connections that you have with these various people. And there's no question about it. The opportunities, I think, for what you want to do are at least started there in Washington.”
For me, this old recording illustrated the perfect balance Dad found as a parent. He didn’t cling to me for purely selfish reasons, as my mother did. Instead, he willingly let me go, encouraged me to blaze my own trail, and was my biggest cheerleader. I am able to see now that my courage, curiosity, and sense of humor have all come from him. His steadfast support for my mother was the most courageous thing he could do in his life. It was something I never could understand until listening to that recording almost 30 years later.
Over the last few years, as I realized he was beginning to wind down, my priority became trying to pay Dad back for all the subtle ways he supported me when I was too dense to appreciate it. In the recent months leading up to his death, he began to express ambivalence about his life and contributions. My mom had, over the course of five decades, taken a wrecking ball to his sense of self-worth, although he never let on until the end was near. I decided that I would use my remaining time with him to build him back up, just as he had built me up for my flight from the nest thirty years ago.
I carefully made sure that every time I spent with Dad was precious and of comfort to him. We talked about things he wanted to talk about, and I became the keeper of his memories. He was always interested in what I was doing, as it gave him a change of pace from a world that, by the end, had shrunk to almost nothing. And I made sure to always emphasize to him that I owed all of my professional and personal success to him and his support.
Late last year, when I was looking at land and contemplating a move, my mom wasted no time in expressing disappointment and actual anger at the timing of my plans. That notwithstanding, Dad expressed an interest in seeing the properties that I was looking at. When I closed on my new house, he again declared that he wanted to see it. Given that he had not left the house in over six months, and was extremely limited in mobility, I wondered if he had lost some of his senses.
As it turned out, it was optimism. It also was an inner strength that I only recently learned to appreciate. Dad literally willed his frail body to climb the seven steps to get out of my parents’ town home and into the car for the hour-long trip up to my new home. I will never forget helping him up those steps and listening to his labored breathing, realizing how very much he wanted this to happen. On our way back, he remarked on how he believed the value of the property would only go up and that I had made a very smart move.
Sadly, his body gave up at a rate far faster than his mind. As my mom meticulously took care of his physical requirements, my heart broke to see her inability to recognize his emotional needs. She refused to contemplate a life without him and used denial as a way to put off the inevitable. And thus, was unable to give him permission to die.
For me, however, just as Dad demonstrated strength in letting me go thirty years ago, I realized I owed it to him to let him know that I could let him go and that we would be okay. I knew he worried about my mom and I told him I would take the baton from him and that she would be okay. We would all be okay. He needed to know that so he, himself, could let go.
“I guess the theme of this tape today is optimism and bright future. These are just kind of some of my thoughts as I was sitting here and looking out, and I see the sunshine, and I think this time of year is one that is very conducive to optimism because you’ve just come through the winter months when the sun is at its lowest ebb, and the days are the shortest, and now we're gradually seeing the days getting a little bit longer, and the sun seems a little brighter and warmer because the angle is getting better, and that sort of stuff. I think I can see why people were sun worshipers in ancient times because, you know, with their lack of education, and knowledge, and everything, why, they…I guess they figured that every year, why, this might be the last time they'd ever see the sun. It starts disappearing there, you know, in the short days of December, and then along about this time of the year they can really see that the sun has… is becoming more and more prominent, and their days are getting longer, and the days are getting warmer, and it just gives you a lot of hope, I think. At least that's my…that's my impression. That's my idea.”
Dad passed away in his sleep, just as my mother had requested. It was his last gift to her.
My heart is full. Peace to you, Dad. You and your optimism will always be the very best part of me.