A Call from Amsterdam

Two nights ago I had a hysterical, hour-long conversation with Olivia on a FaceTime chat.

I might as well just end the post there. Because what more could a mother ask for than her daughter calling in what is the middle-of-the-night-in-Amsterdam-time because she can't sleep and just felt like talking. For an hour. From six thousand miles away.

I can't tell you what we talked about. Privileged information. Mother-daughter confidence must be maintained.

But I can say that my daughter can make me laugh. LAUGH! She can literally make me laugh so hard that my stomach hurts. She can tell a story with just the right amount of detail and exactly the right amount of sarcasm. Most of her stories involve sarcasm. Just know that going in. I have no idea where she gets that.

We talked about everything  from soup to nuts (as my mother would say). We talked about important stuff and trivial crap. I tried to listen more than talk. Not hard to do as she's pretty interesting to listen to. (Just stop it, grammar police; I know what I did. Relax.)

Olivia and I get each other. We can sense each other's subtext. You hear her talking about memes and retweets. That's not what I hear. I can't tell you what I hear. But I hear what she's really talking about.

It's not like we solved the world's problems or anything during this conversation, but I'm ranking the chat up there among my top ten. My almost-twenty-one-year-old daughter called. Just to talk.

Dear Mom and Dad

Dear Mom and Dad,

It's hard to know even where to begin. So I'm going to start with a riff on Dad's toast at our wedding. I believe Dad said that teachers often have to repeat things three times, and he told us "We love you, we love you, we love you." I'm going to echo that sentiment and add a second verse. "We love you, we love you, we love you, and thank you, thank you, thank you."

I want to focus on all the amazing things you both have done for me (and Dave) in the past half year. It's been kind of a crappy time and it would have been so easy to dive down the rabbit hole and be caught endlessly falling in the darkness. It would have been easy for that to happen to me and it certainly would have been easy for that to happen to you. But it didn't.

And here's why.

Because that's not how you do things. It's not how you've ever done things. And so that's not how I do things. Thank you for the example.

It's a gift that you have given to me. A big, giant, lead-by-example, walk-the-walk kind of gift.

There could be no better gift to receive. Nothing in a box, wrapped up in fancy paper and finished with a lovely bow could possibly be more valuable, useful or preferable.

I've watched you both go through heart-breaking, life-altering situations. Some were very unexpected. Some you could see coming. Some were over in a moment and some lasted longer. But no matter what the situation, what I saw was you both doing whatever you could to help make things a little easier, a little better, for those involved. You didn't spend time feeling sorry for yourselves. I'm not really sure you thought of yourselves at all. You spent your time making things better for others. And that made things better for you.

And that's what you've spent the past seven months doing. You've made things better for everyone.

I can't even begin to thank you appropriately. I don't even think I could recount everything you've done. The meals you made, the books you brought, the chats, the walks around the block, the lunches, the daily check-ins, the shoulders to cry on, the good-night texts... so much more.

But the encouragement. And the optimism. And just your presence. Most of all, thank you for that. Because that is what is getting me, getting all of us, through this.

This isn't how things are supposed to be. I never, in my wildest imagination, would have pictured my eighty year old parents taking care of their fifty year old daughter. Isn't that the reverse of how things go? Aren't I supposed to be helping to take care of you? But that's not how things are at present. Life doesn't, apparently, always go the way you think it will. Who knew?

I don't know if you've sat in your kitchen staring blankly into the air wondering, "Why?" I know I have. But I also know that what snaps me out of that is that I have watched you both, for over fifty years now, make your way through life (and all that it throws at you) with grace and dignity and each other. You are always there for each other. And you are always there for us, with quiet support and fortification, gently nudging us forward, upward. No matter what. I have never seen you two sit around feeling sorry for yourselves.

Thank you for that.

I do not have any idea where the two of you get the strength to do what you do, but I'm grateful to be on the receiving end of it.

And my hope is that I'm able to do what you do. I want to have this amazing super-power that you have, this power to make your way through the darkest moments by being your strongest, kindest, most positive selves. That's my goal.

So maybe I could have summed this letter up more succinctly by simply saying,

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thank you for being you. Thank you for being so selfless. Thank you for showing me how to gracefully handle life, with all its ups and downs. I've watched you closely. I've taken notes.
I'm trying to echo your example. What a gift that is! I will try to pass it down :) Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Love,

Kim