You might recall that as kids lil sis were shipped off to sleep away camp every single summer. The first year we went to sleep away I was 8 and lil sis was 6. That was our summertime destination for almost a decade. At sleep away camp getting mail was a BIG deal. I’d desperately write to every friend and relative that I had in attempt to get word back. Hearing my name called at mail call was thrill number one and but then savoring the news from the outside world was the real cherry on top. I loved the mail from friends the best. They were doing things I could relate to. Their letters made me laugh and got me all envious and left me wanting more.
Letters from my mom were nice, because they counted towards eliminating the roll call “will my name be called today” anxiety but in truth they were pretty boring. Mom would chronicle her search for the right shade of mauve shoes, or mention which dinner dance she had attended at the country club, how she missed us and always how quiet the house was without us there. Nothing I could or wanted to relate to. Then she’d sign the letters “Love, Mom and Dad” which bugged me because I knew that Dad had no part in the letter writing process.
Once, back at sleep away camp, when I was about 10 a letter unexpectedly came from my Dad. It was hand written on the yellow legal pad paper that I still associate with him today and it was a whole glorious page long. I don’t remember at all what he wrote but I remember it being a fantastic letter. I remember marveling at what an entertaining and enjoyable letter my dad could write. I savored the letter reading it over and over. Dad, I felt, had been holding out on me the other summers of mom only correspondence! I wanted more. I surely immediately wrote him right back and begged for more. But he never wrote another letter. In all the other years there was never another letter. I would make heart felt pleas for letters and tell him how I much his letter lifted my spirits and meant to me, but he didn’t believe he could write a good letter and never wrote another one. I really wish I had the original.
Needless to say, dad is not a creative spirit. He is a good man, a real mensch, right down the very core of his being. Every single cell in this guy’s body has a good intention to back it right up, but in the creative expression department, he got the short stick. Or at least that is what he believes and carries with him.
Since both of my parents aren’t feeling well, and they aren’t particularly aggressive about spending quality time with the kids in the first place, I find myself pushing the kids towards them in all sorts of ways. Also, and obviously, I want to milk every second for all I can get since they both don’t have very long left on this earth.
When Josh beings home a book to read for his first grade homework I’ll suggest he plop down next to my mother and read it to her. Dad thinks that the Discovery Channel is fascinating so I suggest that he and Evan sit down together and share some tv time. Matt, who spends a great deal of his teenaged time in his own room has been officially put on notice that he needs to bring his teenaged butt down to the den where he can be seen and enjoyed by his grandparents.
When I came home yesterday afternoon, Matt was voluntarily sequestered in his room, Josh was at a Halloween party (there are mothers out there way braver than me) and Evan was at a friend’s house. Mom was sleeping. I saw dad sitting on the couch by himself cutting out newspaper headlines. I asked dad whom he was sending a ransom note to, and he showed me that he had noticed Josh’s name in a headline and was planning on making up some headlines with it. I got busy and didn’t notice what was going on, but when Josh came home from the party dad presented Josh with a book of headlines, zeroxed on his personal fax machine, all about Josh. Josh was so excited he made a cover page and then illustrated each headline. The whole thing was so unexpected and so deliciously special. I felt like I was re-experiencing the miracle of the letter and you know that this time that book is going into the KEEP FOREVER files.
That is so sweet. Sometimes our parents can surpirse us.
Posted by: Laura | October 20, 2007 at 11:53 AM