The (real) Parent Trap?

Dad and Mary

I haven’t talked much about my dad, or at all really, but he’s also part of my current situation.

My mom and dad divorced when I was 12. They’d been married 15 years and had 4 kids. Their divorce was not amicable. I won’t go into the gory details of the split, the ensuing years of animosities and slights, or all the stories my mother told me over the years about what a no-good louse he was.

What I’ll say is that my dad, who is 91 today, lives in my hometown Big City with his 3rd wife of 32 years. He considers himself a born again evangelical Christian. He’s a tRump supporter and hard-core Republican. He’s an ex-vice cop and gun advocate. He’s pretty much everything I’m not. He’s also dying.

Dad has mostly untreated prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, spine, and probably other places (he’s gone off treatment against medical advice more than once because of its side effects). He still gets around his apartment with a walker, and he’s still pretty clear-minded except when he self-medicates for the bone pain. This is a sad time for my dad; he’s brimming with remorse for past deeds, and he struggles with his religion’s promise of (undeserved) forgiveness.

To complicate things, my dad and I weren’t on speaking terms for decades. He was a lousy dad, and I was a hard-headed kid. But in recent years (since just before his cancer), I decided I’d wasted enough time and energy lugging around my load of grudges and resentments, hurts, disappointments, and longing. He was an old man, and he wasn’t going to change. So I opened up the lines of communication. I made him a poster with pictures of his kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids, labeled with their names, many of whom he’d never met. Then Mom decided she liked him okay again.

Before Mom was housebound, she and I went to the Big City to visit Dad as often as we could, and she and Dad talked on the phone several times a week—with his wife on speaker. The visits and calls were slightly flirty and full of I love you’s (kinda weird, for me at least). Now, Dad calls a couple times a week to ask how I’m doing and to check on Mom, again with his wife on speaker. My oldest brother, who lives in the Big City, runs point with Dad. I guess we’re all buddies now.

Mom, Dad, and (slightly confused) Me

This new family luvfest doesn’t mean I’m so magnanimous, so true to my Buddha nature, that I’ve been able to let my parental issues go entirely. But my parents are dying, at the same time. I need to shelve my parent/child conundrums in order to be present and compassionate and not waste any of this time in their lives, nor the lessons it offers me, all of which I consider holy. And even if my parents (and possibly me) don’t realize it, maybe this is their last gift to me—a lighter load of old baggage to carry forward. Here's my mom and dad, singing a duet...