To My Parents
Seven years ago, I wrote an essay about my parents. I sought publication to no avail. Then my boss expressed interest in publishing it, and it sat languishing for years until it started to become outdated. Now that they're no longer living in their home of 50 years, it's completely outdated, so I withdrew it. I'm posting it here (without its title -- not the title of this post, by the way -- because I might also put it on my writing site under my own name).
Almost every Saturday or Sunday afternoon I have tea with my parents. I come by to see how they’re doing and to help out around the house -- mow the lawn, bag leaves, solve a problem on my father’s computer. We might go for a walk around the neighborhood; often I do a crossword with my mother. But at some point, early in the afternoon or late, one of them will say, “Who’d like a cup of tea?”
The invitation is always theirs, though I sometimes do the actual brewing. Dad likes straightforward black tea, not even of especially high quality -- a store brand will do. If I’m making it, though, I’ll root around in the cupboard for some loose tea or Twinings bags -- usually left over from a Father’s Day or Christmas present. My siblings and I are always giving him what we consider good teas, but as a Cancer who came of age during the Depression, he’s both set in his ways and thrifty till the end.
I’m technically off caffeine, but a polite hello to my system now and then isn’t unwelcome, so I’ll usually have whatever Mom and Dad are drinking, even if it’s a steaming cup of U-Save brand. (I’ve been a vegetarian for several years, too, and it feels like a lot to ask of two people in their eighties to swear off meat and caffeine just because I’ve come calling.) If, say, I haven’t slept well for some reason and I’m worried about another wakeful night, I might make a separate pot of herbal for me and my mother. As long as there’s a wedge of lemon and a generous teaspoonful of honey, then chamomile or peppermint suits her just as well as Earl Grey.
I’m strictly a lemon man myself -- I like the tart balance to the usually sweet accompaniments -- but I’ve gotten in the lemon-and-honey habit when I’m over there. The way I look at it is: Mom offers me honey every time -- why not accept? Dad takes his tea with a spoonful of sugar. This surprised me; he used to drink it black, as he did his coffee for all the years he drank that. Come to think of it, Mom always had her coffee without sugar as well, just half-and-half. Does your craving for sweetness become greater the older you get?
I end up eating most of whatever Mom and Dad serve with the tea -- an inevitability they take into account when baking or shopping for this unspoken ritual. I don’t have an official standing date with them, and I occasionally miss a weekend visit entirely. At some point during those times -- whether I’m out of town, at the office, or busy with errands -- it’ll hit me with a flash that there’s a box of cookies on the counter or a tray of scones cooling by the stove in the house I grew up in.
These days Dad has taken on the role of provider of baked goods, and Mom is happy to let him: one week, donuts from Safeway or Danish from a nearby bakery; the next, homemade brownies or soda bread. Nothing fancy from his own hand -- no pies, tarts, or anything with multiple layers. The recipes he chooses are almost monastic in their simplicity. But they’re made with love, a convert’s curiosity, and the hope that someone else will be there to share them.
Dad started to help with the cooking when I was a teenager, but he never baked then. Mom did, and it’s from her that I inherit my own love of baking. Before I was even in school, I’d stand by her side measuring ingredients for spice cake, the page in the cookbook marked for easy reference with a sheet of wax paper; cornflake cookies, the dough so thick with cereal and oatmeal that it slowed the mixer to a whine; or banana bread, to be cut into moist slices and spread with cream cheese.
Today, if I’m bored or stressed out at the end of the day, I’ll more likely than not find my way into the kitchen to bake. It’s my first real skill -- learned before riding a bike, before swimming. As with most such skills, my first teacher is with me each time I practice it.
***
The bird feeder outside their kitchen window is crowded with sparrows, grackles, and the occasional mourning dove. When the birds land, seeds spray from the saucer like ice from a skater’s blade.
My parents and I talk about the birds -- conversations that, thanks to a change of seed, now actually are about the birds rather than the squirrels. We talk about the new people across the street, who sit out on their front lawn instead of their back, a habit that my parents are as appalled by as if the neighbors had strung a clothes line across the front porch. We talk about the crumbling playhouse from my siblings’ and my childhood; Mom would like to replace it even though it serves little purpose other than to store an old bike, random lumber, and broken furniture. We talk about phone calls from or visits by my two sisters and my brother -- about their kids, jobs, vacations -- and about the news of my own life: a wedding I attended, a high-school friend I ran into, what I made for dinner the night before last.
Sometimes we talk in circles -- Mom’s memory is fading -- and often I feel I have little of interest to say (“I gave away three bags of clothes to Goodwill last week!”), but I have to believe they’re glad for the company. I’m not as entertaining as I wish I were -- while there are smiles enough, it’s hard to remember the last time any of the three of us laughed outright. But when words fail -- at least interesting, fresh, unexpected words -- there’s always the tea.
Who’d like a second cup? Is this Red Zinger or Lemon Zinger? Help yourself to another slice of cake. The fear of spoiling one’s appetite for dinner, a concept I was raised on, vanishes for all three of us during the handful of hours I’m at their house. Is this what it’s like to be English?
I refill Mom’s cup and add more hot water to the pot while Dad replenishes the sweets. I’m welcome to perform some of the hosting duties, just as I’m allowed to let myself in with my own key without ringing the doorbell. My parents would never do either at my house, nor would I want them to. I suppose part of being a grown child on good terms with your parents is having full access to your home of origin, no questions asked. And part of being parents who respect their adult children must be to willingly wear the mantle of guest when visiting them. The reward, when the children come to their house, is to put on the more comfortable costume -- if only briefly -- of parents whose children never left.
***
I sit with them awhile longer, till the clock starts inching up on dinnertime. I’ve found no way to make my departure not seem abrupt. Even if I plant the seed before the fact -- “Well . . . I should think about going pretty soon” -- at some point I have to stand up and say goodbye. That moment always seems to come in the middle of something -- Mom and me struggling with the last, frustrating corner of the New York Times crossword or Dad pulling a book from the shelf to find a poem whose first (or fifth) line one of us saw quoted somewhere.
“You can take it with you,” he says, handing me the book.
Sometimes I politely turn him down, pleading too much reading I haven’t gotten to at home. More often I let myself see how badly he wants to give it to me -- confirm that I share one of his intellectual passions -- and I take it.
I walk to the front door, thanking them for the tea and the hospitality. Mom tells me to drive safely. If it’s dark by now, she might ask me to give a quick call when I get home, just to let them know all’s well. Neither of them drives at night anymore.
“Doesn’t driving in the dark bother you?” Mom often asks.
“Only if it’s an unfamiliar route,” I say. “But I could find my way home without any light at all.”
*** *** ***
Almost every Saturday or Sunday afternoon I have tea with my parents. I come by to see how they’re doing and to help out around the house -- mow the lawn, bag leaves, solve a problem on my father’s computer. We might go for a walk around the neighborhood; often I do a crossword with my mother. But at some point, early in the afternoon or late, one of them will say, “Who’d like a cup of tea?”
The invitation is always theirs, though I sometimes do the actual brewing. Dad likes straightforward black tea, not even of especially high quality -- a store brand will do. If I’m making it, though, I’ll root around in the cupboard for some loose tea or Twinings bags -- usually left over from a Father’s Day or Christmas present. My siblings and I are always giving him what we consider good teas, but as a Cancer who came of age during the Depression, he’s both set in his ways and thrifty till the end.
I’m technically off caffeine, but a polite hello to my system now and then isn’t unwelcome, so I’ll usually have whatever Mom and Dad are drinking, even if it’s a steaming cup of U-Save brand. (I’ve been a vegetarian for several years, too, and it feels like a lot to ask of two people in their eighties to swear off meat and caffeine just because I’ve come calling.) If, say, I haven’t slept well for some reason and I’m worried about another wakeful night, I might make a separate pot of herbal for me and my mother. As long as there’s a wedge of lemon and a generous teaspoonful of honey, then chamomile or peppermint suits her just as well as Earl Grey.
I’m strictly a lemon man myself -- I like the tart balance to the usually sweet accompaniments -- but I’ve gotten in the lemon-and-honey habit when I’m over there. The way I look at it is: Mom offers me honey every time -- why not accept? Dad takes his tea with a spoonful of sugar. This surprised me; he used to drink it black, as he did his coffee for all the years he drank that. Come to think of it, Mom always had her coffee without sugar as well, just half-and-half. Does your craving for sweetness become greater the older you get?
I end up eating most of whatever Mom and Dad serve with the tea -- an inevitability they take into account when baking or shopping for this unspoken ritual. I don’t have an official standing date with them, and I occasionally miss a weekend visit entirely. At some point during those times -- whether I’m out of town, at the office, or busy with errands -- it’ll hit me with a flash that there’s a box of cookies on the counter or a tray of scones cooling by the stove in the house I grew up in.
These days Dad has taken on the role of provider of baked goods, and Mom is happy to let him: one week, donuts from Safeway or Danish from a nearby bakery; the next, homemade brownies or soda bread. Nothing fancy from his own hand -- no pies, tarts, or anything with multiple layers. The recipes he chooses are almost monastic in their simplicity. But they’re made with love, a convert’s curiosity, and the hope that someone else will be there to share them.
Dad started to help with the cooking when I was a teenager, but he never baked then. Mom did, and it’s from her that I inherit my own love of baking. Before I was even in school, I’d stand by her side measuring ingredients for spice cake, the page in the cookbook marked for easy reference with a sheet of wax paper; cornflake cookies, the dough so thick with cereal and oatmeal that it slowed the mixer to a whine; or banana bread, to be cut into moist slices and spread with cream cheese.
Today, if I’m bored or stressed out at the end of the day, I’ll more likely than not find my way into the kitchen to bake. It’s my first real skill -- learned before riding a bike, before swimming. As with most such skills, my first teacher is with me each time I practice it.
***
The bird feeder outside their kitchen window is crowded with sparrows, grackles, and the occasional mourning dove. When the birds land, seeds spray from the saucer like ice from a skater’s blade.
My parents and I talk about the birds -- conversations that, thanks to a change of seed, now actually are about the birds rather than the squirrels. We talk about the new people across the street, who sit out on their front lawn instead of their back, a habit that my parents are as appalled by as if the neighbors had strung a clothes line across the front porch. We talk about the crumbling playhouse from my siblings’ and my childhood; Mom would like to replace it even though it serves little purpose other than to store an old bike, random lumber, and broken furniture. We talk about phone calls from or visits by my two sisters and my brother -- about their kids, jobs, vacations -- and about the news of my own life: a wedding I attended, a high-school friend I ran into, what I made for dinner the night before last.
Sometimes we talk in circles -- Mom’s memory is fading -- and often I feel I have little of interest to say (“I gave away three bags of clothes to Goodwill last week!”), but I have to believe they’re glad for the company. I’m not as entertaining as I wish I were -- while there are smiles enough, it’s hard to remember the last time any of the three of us laughed outright. But when words fail -- at least interesting, fresh, unexpected words -- there’s always the tea.
Who’d like a second cup? Is this Red Zinger or Lemon Zinger? Help yourself to another slice of cake. The fear of spoiling one’s appetite for dinner, a concept I was raised on, vanishes for all three of us during the handful of hours I’m at their house. Is this what it’s like to be English?
I refill Mom’s cup and add more hot water to the pot while Dad replenishes the sweets. I’m welcome to perform some of the hosting duties, just as I’m allowed to let myself in with my own key without ringing the doorbell. My parents would never do either at my house, nor would I want them to. I suppose part of being a grown child on good terms with your parents is having full access to your home of origin, no questions asked. And part of being parents who respect their adult children must be to willingly wear the mantle of guest when visiting them. The reward, when the children come to their house, is to put on the more comfortable costume -- if only briefly -- of parents whose children never left.
***
I sit with them awhile longer, till the clock starts inching up on dinnertime. I’ve found no way to make my departure not seem abrupt. Even if I plant the seed before the fact -- “Well . . . I should think about going pretty soon” -- at some point I have to stand up and say goodbye. That moment always seems to come in the middle of something -- Mom and me struggling with the last, frustrating corner of the New York Times crossword or Dad pulling a book from the shelf to find a poem whose first (or fifth) line one of us saw quoted somewhere.
“You can take it with you,” he says, handing me the book.
Sometimes I politely turn him down, pleading too much reading I haven’t gotten to at home. More often I let myself see how badly he wants to give it to me -- confirm that I share one of his intellectual passions -- and I take it.
I walk to the front door, thanking them for the tea and the hospitality. Mom tells me to drive safely. If it’s dark by now, she might ask me to give a quick call when I get home, just to let them know all’s well. Neither of them drives at night anymore.
“Doesn’t driving in the dark bother you?” Mom often asks.
“Only if it’s an unfamiliar route,” I say. “But I could find my way home without any light at all.”
posted by Billy at 9:21 AM
1 Comments:
I'm so glad you are blogging again and very much appreciate your sharing this superb essay. I don't know many writers who combine telling detail with such lyricism, and deepening and broadening of meaning at the end. Forest, trees, leaves, and bark -- all in place and in focus and conveyed with such poetry and heart.
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