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| Friday, March 20, 2009 |
| Making Whoopie |
Visiting with my parents in Connecticut has always been interesting. Interesting is actually my mother’s secret code word to answer any question politely. It allows her to smile, and give you a direct, but neutral response you are free to interpret as you choose. As my parents grow older, our visits together would have to be described as extremely interesting.
Whenever I appear for a visit, my parents behave as though I’ve always been right there; I’m just not sure where there is. I’ve come to think of there as an alternate or parallel universe inhabited exclusively by grown ‘children’ who live far away from their parents. I’m never sure if this is their reproach, a memory lapse, or just living in the moment.
My feelings during these visits combine guilt over longer absences and shorter visits, and worry about my parents’ ability to continue living on their own. Then I stress about missing my children, my husband, my job, my friends, and my home, which I guess are my real universe. A good friend just told me that’s why we Boomers are now called the ‘Sandwich Generation'. We live between the responsibilities for two generations, our parents and our children.
I’m not sure how old my parents think I am in this alternate universe, but right after the hellos, my mother always asks when I’m seeing Janet or Mindy. Not if, or have I thought about her, or do I remember her, but when. This is a girl I sat next to in 3rd grade. Then my mother reaches into an old chest, drags out one album, from a stack of 26 identical old, unlabeled, undated, dusty photo albums, flips to a random page, and there we are, a picture of me and Janet sitting together in our Brownie Uniforms. While I mutter ‘you could take this act on the road’, she is usually dialing the ‘old friends’ phone number from my 3rd grade birthday party list and handing me the phone just as Janet says hello. Why should that be awkward?
Back in Florida, where things are ‘normal,’ I call my parents often to say hello, and see how they’re doing. I’m always tearing out little articles from newspapers and magazines hoping to chat about something besides the weather and the economy. I was describing ‘sandwich generation’ as the new name for ‘baby boomers’, and telling my mother I just read in the New York Times that the Whoopie Pie has returned as a popular ‘new’ desert. I asked my mother if she remembered getting them at the beach in the old days, and if she had ever made them at home, did she have any recipes? She said she couldn’t really talk, so I said goodbye. I didn’t really think much about it until my brother called me today to ask what was going on. I said nothing special. He said that’s interesting, because mom told everyone she knows that you won’t make anything but a sandwich for your family anymore, but want to know if she still cooks and makes whoopee with Dad.
- Nancy
Labels: food for thought, Nancy
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posted by My Sensei @ Friday, March 20, 2009   |
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