Orphan (lack of parents) Often (frequently)

I am an orphan.  It is not all that unusual for a 55 year old person to be moving through life without parents.  It is also not unusual for a 55 year old orphan to wish the aforementioned parents were still available.  

This past weekend there were a couple of instances when I was very aware I couldn’t talk to my parents.  

Lori and I bought our Christmas tree and started putting up some decorations.  

Christmas is a time I wistfully remember my dad.  This might surprise many of the people who only knew him professionally.  He was an imposing individual.  Smart, direct, well-spoken, highly ethical, with expectations that the world ought to be a place of equality where people took care of each other.  (His level of disappointment and disgust with the politics of today would be epic.)  One of my high school buddies said he had a quiet power like Anwar Sadat.  I never crossed him.  Partially because I couldn’t stand the idea of disappointing him and partially because he could give me a single look which turned my spine to pudding.  

He was not a big fan of organized religion but he loved Christmas.  During December we referred to the station wagon he drove as the sleigh.  We kids suspected there were toys and such in the trunk space in the back of the car.  

I remember each year he got Mom some clothes.  Things which looked soft and comfortable.  He tried but I do not have memories of seeing Mom wear them.  I was not the most observant kid so maybe she did.  Ask my sister.  She paid attention.  

When the four kids got older we stopped getting up before dawn to dive into the Santa spoils under the tree.  It was then that Dad became the person chomping at the bit.  He would take his cane and pound on the ceiling of the living room which would make noise in the upstairs bedrooms of the slumbering kids - when down below there arose such a clatter.  

My dad had a difficult childhood but he was still able to be a child with us.  

Last Sunday night there was a special television show commemorating the 50th anniversary of The Carol Burnett Show.  I will always think of my mother when watching Carol.  

I  watched a lot of television growing up but it was not a solitary activity.  The entire family sat together and watched.  The most common thing on the TV was comedy.  We laughed out loud together.  Except when there was some sort of off-color joke (which were much more veiled at that time) the only one laughing was Dad and that was only obvious if you were looking at him and saw his stomach going up and down (his enjoyment of the off-color jokes was also veiled).

Carol Burnett was a favorite of my mother’s.  She had seen all the movies the show would do their spot on parodies about and got all the clever allusions.  I had not and did not.  Which also explains why later in life I would laugh out loud during classic movies for no apparent reason.  

When the Carol Burnett show had it’s final episode my mother couldn’t watch.  She suffered from what she called “sick headaches”.  These were migraines that knocked her flat.  The first day she’d be throwing up like a frat boy at 4:00 AM.  The next day she’d be exhausted and preferred staying in a darkened bedroom.  The final episode was on the second day of a sick headache.  I am sure she wanted to watch but a flickering screen was not a good idea.  This was before DVR and even before VCR.  If you missed it, you missed it.  

I remember watching the show.  The only thing I really remember about the show itself was when they surprised Carol by bringing Jimmy Stewart on stage.  I also remember sitting on the edge of Mom’s bed describing that moment to her.  I was nowhere near as accurate as a DVR but I wanted her to know what happened.  

My mother had sat on the edge of my bed for innumerable evenings reading to me.  She was constant in doing this for all of us.  She read things she chose (all the Mary Poppins books, all the Dr. Doolittle books, all the Freddy the Pig books etc. etc.) but when I got older I remember picking library books for her to read to me.  I am sure she got a huge kick out of reading “Mr. Clutch: The Jerry West Story”.

No matter how old I get my parents will always be missed.  I wish I was more like each of them.

Also, my mother would have flipped out with joy holding my daughter’s twins and my dad would have had a ball showing them a really cheesy computer game while having them sit on his lap.  

(There are hundreds of bonus points available to the gentle reader who can tell me what the orphan/often title of this post refers to.)