Parenting Our Parents: A Week With My Father
January 18, 2023
I hope that everyone has had a good week while I have been gone. I have been down in NYC after my father had a stroke. In the truest New Yorker fashion, he collapsed in front of a Van Gogh painting at the Met. Thankfully, he is being well looked after despite the nursing strike and he is in good spirits (mostly).
Are we ever prepared to have to parent our parents?! What an experience to bear witness to their fragility. When I was a little girl, my father, despite being “the old dad” appeared invincible to me. He started running marathons in his fifties, and currently still works as a teacher and a director. I am lucky to say that my father is extremely engaged in the world, despite his age.
However, taking care of our parents is hard and stressful. It is hard to see him be a shadow of himself. I was watching a nurse tend to him and could see how thin he is, how fragile. It was so shocking that I showed the Nurse a picture of him when he was at the beach in his youth. I said, “this is what he looks like on a good day.”
This week has also been incredibly valuable. It has been a long time since my father, and I have had days on end to sit and talk with each other. Although we have different careers, we both love connection, and our common bond is developing personal relationships with others. My father taught me to be curious about others, to connect with them, to be kind and compassionate. Everyone who walks in the room gets the same line of questions: what is your name? Where are you from? Tell us about you…
My dad is incredibly generous with his presence. The OT asked him about his children, and he mentioned how my eldest brother committed suicide. She then went on to say that her brother had too. I came back into the room, and they were holding hands and weeping together.
We have talked about everything, our family, our challenges, and hardships. We cried and laughed together.
Over the course of the week, he has told wonderful stories about his life going to school with Marylin Monroe and Mike Nichols. He told me about how he met Gene Tunney, the undefeated heavy weight champion of the world from 1926-28 in Cuba in the 40’s. He told me that when he shook his hand, his entire hand disappeared within his.
He wept when he described a painting he saw in Rome once. The calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio (1599). The painting represents when Jesus and Saint Peter saw a man named Matthew and said to him “Follow me.” The painting is perfection as the bearded Matthew humbling points to himself as if to say “me?” It is the embodiment of human nature as we question ourselves and the value of our contributions to the world.
I suppose as one moves towards the end of their life, the question becomes what have I contributed to the world? Where have I added value?
I know this is not my typical letter. I have a lot of thoughts running around my head about my father as we learn more about heart issues and cancers developing within him. However, I am grateful for this week, and I am grateful for the time we have had together and the opportunity to ask myself where I have brought value into the world.
We model our relationships with others (our spouses, colleagues, children etc.) based on the relationships we had with our parents. Since you are all parents, I would love to instill a little wisdom I have learned from my father. No matter what happens, you must remain open to each other. Open and willing to connect, to share, be honest, be emotional, be your truest self. If you can do that with your children, they too will have the opportunity to grow up and develop meaningful relationships with others based on curiosity, empathy, kindness, and the ability to truly find joy in connecting with others.
My father raised me to love what I do. And I do. I love working with children, families, and teachers. I love that my job is to make meaningful connections with others. I cannot thank you enough for the opportunity to work with you and to bring myself (warts and all) to CCL.
Thank you for letting me share with you.
Allegra
