Tonight, my parents were late picking me up for pizza night,
and because they are never late, I tried calling them, and there was no
answer. Then I heard a siren, and I
started having these wild fears that they got in a car accident, and I became
deeply worried and sad. I called my
grandma and it turned out they were in a movie.
But that feeling of my parents’ mortality was so heavy that I wanted to
cry. When my parents arrived and picked
me up and I told them about my fears, they apologized and then they said, “That’s
how it feels to be a parent.” I’d never
really felt that before. I remember
reading somewhere “To be a mother is to always have tears behind your eyes.”
We had a nice dinner together. I read them some things I’d been writing and
they were genuinely proud, and my dad said, “That’s also how it feels to be a
parent.” To have those joys, right
alongside the fear and sorrow. The older
I get, it seems, the more sensitive I become to these things. My love for family, and for friends, is made
more intense by the prospect of loss, of mortality. It is a strange mixture of love and sadness
and joy that I can’t exactly describe, but I felt compelled to try to write
it. Once, when I was going through a
really difficult time, I remember my brother gave me a card that simply said, “I’m
glad you’re alive.” That is exactly how
I feel about my family. I’m glad they
are alive. Which is another way of
saying…I love them.
