I want this post to be so little about me as possible, so I will start with some context and them move on to what is really on my mind and what I think is important.
And I have written this with Allen, Doug, Jennifer, Amy and Tinu in my mind.
When I was 39 years old, my children were three and one, and my mother contracted lung cancer. It was nine grueling months of chemo, radiation, blood clots and one infection after another. She succumbed after the battle in April of 2004, six days before Mother's Day.
In those final moments and days after her death, I had a strange thought. "I am a 39 year-old orphan." My father died when I was 15. So while I owned a house, was building a family, a career, carving out my place in life, I went from being the child, to the caretaker, to the parent-like role and decision maker and finally to the orphan.
What is inspiring my thinking this morning is the plight of several of my friends who have of late endured what many people call the "sandwich generation." As I was writing this post, I got a text telling me that the father of one of my friends in high school passed away last night. So this is horriblly prescient.
As I experienced it, as you are busy raising young children, building a career, doing many new things, all of a sudden, there is either a slow, gradual or shockingly fast transtition from being a kid to being an adult. It's agonizing.
Sure, we know if our heart of hearts that we are adults. Our driver's licenses and numbers of candles on the birthday cake say so, right? But for many, your MOM IS YOUR MOM. YOUR DAD IS YOUR DAD. And also for many, those individuals, no matter how they may age, can turn you into a 10 year-old with a word or a phrase. Even if you are 40+, you still seek advice, comfort and approval.
Then there is the subtle, creeping change. There may or may not be a diagnosis of something wrong. The phone calls or in-person visits turn from casual conversation to medical reports. "My blood numbers are this, my doctor said that, the MRI showed this." For many, these words and situation are so overwhelming that it's hard to process: "Oh my God, I am becoming the parent." You may have a surviving mom or dad who is so paralyzed that you end up as the unwelcome decision-maker.
Again, for many, when parents get older and scared, it's the children who make the appointments, battle with the docs, take copious notes and do tons of Internet research. Again the slow march of time like water washing over a rock unsideously and slowly progresses the transistion from ten year-old to the One In Charge. The lack of sleep, caring for a family, focusing at work often make one unaware of the encroaching leadership role that none of us want. It's impossible to process.
Finally, when the last days come, at least for me up to my mother's death and after, I WAS the parent. I was the adult in the room. I had responsibilities. I had people who still needed me, an employer who had been more than patient, tasks that had been frozen in time as this transformation progressed. Yet I was still the Man in Charge. Somehow, I quickly went from kid to Family Patriarch.
Then, there is the moment.
"Oh, my God. I am an adult orphan."
We all will go through it, but somehow, even in one's 40s or 50's, it is life's final indignity in a march to adulthood. We don't want it now any more than we wanted a parent's disapproval when we were 10.
One of my favorite photos of my son was when we was about four. It's a picture taken behind us, and we're holding hands, walking down a path in a park. He's looking up to me - literally, as if asking for bits of wisdom, advice or approval. I look at that picture every day because of what it represents. In his formative years, I will hold his hand and get him started down the path of life. He has and will hopefully look to me for guidance on how to become a man, go on a date, do well in school or athletics. And enjoy life. Then I'll let go and he will continue down that path on his own, just like I did before him.
And God willing, as we separately but together continue all down the path of life, he and his sister will be there when we come to the point at which it's their turn to hold my hand and walk me down the final steps on the path of my own life. And become an unwanted adult.
It's abrupt, it's cruel and it's insidious. But it's the path that most of us have to take.
Allen, Amy, Jennifer, Doug and Tinu: I am so sorry that you had to walk down that path. It's gradual yet fast. It's sobering and responsible . It's insidous and cruel.
God bless you.
Mark
