{"id":4280,"date":"2016-04-27T16:57:42","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T23:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=4280"},"modified":"2016-04-27T16:57:42","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T23:57:42","slug":"big-birthday-memory-2-home-and-heartache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/27\/big-birthday-memory-2-home-and-heartache\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Birthday Memory #2: Home and Heartache"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Home<\/a>
Home in DC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NOTE: \u00a0As I approach my 70th birthday, I\u2019ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. \u00a0Today – from December 4, 2006.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah, we\u2019re home \u2013 and as usual it\u2019s like walking into an electric fan. We landed, unpacked, did laundry, slept (until 3AM) then Rick went back to the airport for a fund-raising trip to California. I\u2019m working on several major projects and wanting to organize for when the boys come home for the holidays. Grocery lists and activity planning in addition to many hours of business obligations.<\/p>\n

Lots on my mind. Today a friend told me about the last conversation she had with her father and I was ambushed by a deluge of memories. It\u2019s tough to come to terms with the loss of a parent. Both of mine have been gone for years and there isn\u2019t a day I don\u2019t think of them \u2014 and, often, wish I could ask them something \u2013 or tell them something \u2014 or just feel their love again. I haven\u2019t felt this way in a long time and it surprised me. I just wasn\u2019t expecting the intensity.<\/p>\n

I once sent my dad the lyrics to a Judy Collins song about her father. It\u2019s a wonderful evocation of the love between fathers and daughters and the bitter-sweet realization that one\u2019s life will exceed that of a beloved parent. It\u2019s what they\u2019d wish for us but it\u2019s complicated. Anyway there wasn\u2019t a moment of my life when I doubted the love for and faith in me felt by both my parents.<\/p>\n

There were also circumstances in my life that led me, in my memory at least, to be less attentive than I wanted to be. I think it will haunt me forever- times when finances or my own parental responsibilities kept me from visits; times when I let my dad tell me not to come because he didn\u2019t want us to “see him like this.” \u2014 all those things we all wish we\u2019d done differently. I am beginning to think that this is a real issue for me and one I\u2019ve got to get some clarity about.<\/p>\n

This is the second time in the space of the 90 days or so I\u2019ve had this blog that my dad has come up and he\u2019s been gone since 1991. Somehow though I\u2019m more at peace with the loss of him. I can summon memories that make me smile and I know that he had a profound and lovely effect on my sons, which adds to my own fond remembrances of him.<\/p>\n

My mother, who died in 1998, haunts me though. I know things in her life frustrated her \u2013 and that she would have liked to do more in the world outside the house. My husband told both her and me that I was guilty that my arrival had pulled her out of a promising career but she insisted that that was HER choice and I should get over it. That she loved raising the three of us. I don\u2019t doubt that she loved raising her daughters but I also think she needed more than she was able to get in life as a suburban mom. I don\u2019t know \u2013 all I know is that I feel a need to be particularly helpful to elderly women on the street, or the bus, or the synagogue steps. As if I can do for her by doing for them. Agh. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m going to bed to see if I can beat the last of the jet lag. This is too sad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE: \u00a0As I approach my 70th birthday, I\u2019ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. \u00a0Today – from December 4, 2006. Yeah, we\u2019re home \u2013 and as usual it\u2019s like walking into an electric fan. We landed, unpacked, did laundry, slept (until 3AM) then Rick went back to the airport … Continue reading Big Birthday Memory #2: Home and Heartache<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3800,3,4,3798,3801,42,7],"tags":[192,3417,2312,2409,2410,3802,969,204,790,2411],"class_list":["post-4280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3800","category-aging","category-baby-boom","category-big-birthday","category-big-birthday-70-1946-2016","category-family","category-life","tag-aging-2","tag-family","tag-grief","tag-guilt","tag-judy-collins","tag-lifetags-father","tag-love","tag-mother","tag-parents","tag-stay-at-home-moms"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-172","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4285,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280\/revisions\/4285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}