Day #340 Writing Through COVID-19: Old and Precious

I was glum after the strange, short phone call I had with my dad yesterday, so this morning when I talked him through logging on to Zoom for Sunday School, I asked if he'd be up to Bridge later in the day. He said he'd like that.

This afternoon we played a hand. It was not our best, in part because we played poorly, but also because our opponent had such unusual cards: two singletons! (Call this rationalization.)
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After our game, I asked if Mom was sleeping. "I think so," he said. "She sleeps a lot unless we are reading to each other."

Just then my mom called from the bedroom: "I'm awake!"

"Come out and see Alli," Dad said. 
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I asked no direct questions and instead guided the conversation gently: "I had Adrienne bring you Klondike Bars because I remembered how much we enjoyed them in the evenings watching movies when you were at my house," I said. This phrasing invited her to chime in without putting her on the spot with direct questions such as "Did you like the Klondike Bars?" or "Remember when we watched movies in my basement?"

"Some of the movies were better than others," I offered, and my mom gamely rejoined: 

"But the Klondike Bars were always good!"
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Such exchanges--when she's interacting with humor--are puffs of joy to me. They let me feel her intelligence and joie de vivre, characteristics I rarely appreciated when we were locked in constant battle during my teen years, and then beyond. 

It now seems like such a loss, at age 61, to realize the dominant dynamic of my relationship with my mom was honed during a mere four years of adolescence. That difficult time cemented us into years of division and quasi-estrangement.

Part of this, I'm sure, is because of our genuine differences in how we interact with the world. 

But as I experienced during our COVID time together, we have deep affection that might have been tapped years earlier, had we not been chained to expectations welded during those few fraught teenage years.
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As painful as it is to think of the years we lost, it astounds me to realize that--at ages 89 and 60--in the crevices of a pandemic, my mother and I found a way back to healing.
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This afternoon Mom sat in the chair in front of the computer, which was angled awkwardly, cutting her off below the nose while scalping my dad who hovered behind her.

We talked about New Zealand and the handmade children's books she constructed. 

I told her that Palmer will call me one day to tell me how brilliant her students are, then call the next to tell me they know nothing! We shared a hearty teacher laugh. 
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My parents are, like antiques, old

and precious.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison