Timmy Should Mind His Own Business
The day my parents picked me up from school early
“Somebody’s grandparents are here to pick them up!”
I was in third grade. My teacher was tall with short curly hair that was completely white. I loved her. She was one of the sweetest teachers I ever had. (Not like mean old Mrs. Stephens the next year!)
I was a miracle baby, an accident, unexpected, “the tumor baby.” My parents thought they were done with diapers. They were already in their thirties when I was born. And, when I was born NO ONE WAITED UNTIL THEIR THIRTIES to have kids. By the time I was in third grade, they had one child married and were only a year away from having their first grandchild.
So, I guess it makes sense that when they came to pick me up from school that day that another student thought I WAS the grandchild.
When my mother tells this story she always adds the detail that she “frosted her hair” back then. She seems to think that it was that one thing that made them seem so old to Little Timmy who felt the need to yell to the entire class,
“Somebody’s grandparents are here to pick them up!”
I don’t really remember the name of the kid who did that. I don’t remember knowing a Little Timmy at all, but it feels about right. I also don’t remember if my fear about my parents dying started that day or if it is just something I was born with. Like the birthmark on my arm, it feels like it has been with me forever.
Are all children afraid their parents will die? I imagine it happens to all of us at some point, but my little brain took it too far. That is probably why it so easily created a dream about my parents dying to tell Mom when I was scared so that she would feel sorry for me and let me climb into the bed with them to sleep. There was no such dream. I had not been to sleep.
My father smoked. He grew up in the fifties. Everyone smoked. Here is the funny thing, though. My mother hated it. She ended up going out with my dad BECAUSE he was the only teenager around who DID NOT smoke. Not too long into their marriage, Dad got pneumonia. It was so bad that he had to be hospitalized. He was around 20 years old. He had a terrible cough — because he had pneumonia. There was an old man in the bed next to him. Back then there were several people in the same room. The old man said,
“You know what will cure that cough, son? A cigarette.”
AND HE GAVE HIM A CIGARETTE! And, Dad smoked it. Probably right there in the hospital room! If I was in a Shakespearean play, I would have to say, “A pox upon his whole house!”
Instead, my father was addicted to them for the rest of his life. It is what killed him. We all knew it would. And, when I was growing up, I was certain that would happen sooner rather than later.
He would smoke. I would get so angry.
“You are going to die before I graduate high school!”
He would smoke. I would get so angry.
“You are going to die before I get married!”
He would smoke. I would get so angry.
“You are going to die before I have kids!”
He didn’t. But, my youngest barely remembers him. With every day, another bit of the memory fades away.
Hubby and I were married for eleven years before we had kids. This is astounding to me because I swore from that day in third grade that I would NEVER wait so late to have kids that they would have to go through having such OLD PARENTS.
Life is funny. I had my oldest when I was almost as old as my mother was when she had me. And, it wasn’t a surprise or an accident or a tumor. It was very much planned.
Dad was surprised. Shortly after we told them that we were going to have a baby, he said,
“Well, you always told me that I would die before you have kids. I was beginning to think you were right!”
You would think that I would have been prepared since I had been expecting it my whole life. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I was not. And, the profound grief of his dying thirteen years ago is palpable in almost everything I do — including writing this.
I try to be more mature in this so called Year 49. When I worry about my mother dying, I try to remember that worrying about it is not going to stop it from happening. Just like worrying about the plane crashing is not what keeps it in the air. (I have a friend who believes this is true. If they don’t worry enough about it crashing, then it will fall out of the sky!) Mom no longer frosts the tips of her hair. I’m planning her 100th birthday party in my mind. That’s still 20 years away.
“Somebody’s grandparents are here to pick them up!”
It shouldn’t have mattered. It shouldn’t have been embarrassing. I was eight. It was. Seems so stupid now. For the side of me that enjoys analyzing everything, I wish I could remember if it was Little Timmy’s comment that started the fear of them dying. Probably isn’t fair to Timmy — or whatever his name was. It probably was like the birthmark, with me from the beginning for some reason that isn’t easily explained.
There are moments when I find myself being afraid loved ones will die, but for the most part, I live with “the sound of inevitability” of death. (That was a Matrix reference, by the way. Agent Smith to Neo. Look it up.) I don’t think about it too much. I realize this essay contradicts that fact, but it is true.
What I wasn’t quite prepared for is the fear of my own death. I know. Not unique. But, I’ve never really been afraid of dying. What I find myself afraid of is not the actual dying itself but of dying and leaving my own children with the grief that I feel for my father. That is something no parenting book explained to me. There was no “What to Expect When You Are Expecting — TO DIE!” [Insert laugh track here. Please!]
Luckily, by the time Hubby and I had kids it was the new trend to wait until your thirties. I can’t even imagine myself as a parent at 20. It would have been a disaster. When we picked up our kids at school, we looked just like Little Timmy’s parents too so we didn’t have to hear his whiny voice yell across the room,
“Somebody’s grandparents are here to pick them up!”
