As we travel through my favorite metaphor, the ol’ tailor’s shop, picking up tidbits everywhere that stick, somehow we learn that our holidays won’t be like those Macy’s commercials or a Dickens novel, and no holidays will ever be as movies portray them or as they are ever anticipated to be.
As our children grow up and travel to wherever their life leads them, miles grow between us. The geography is killing all of us (Chatterbox Aug. 6, 2004) and the faces we wish were seated around our table are often seated around some other table in some other state, laughing with some other crowd of people. That’s the progression of life, but when we’re blessed with offspring who are able to assume control of their own life, we are truly blessed, and one day, if we get lucky, there are those moments, those cards, those thrilling phone calls and those late night chats. When we get a chance at those great little moments, we have to take them.
One of my daughters once talked about a tidbit I had dropped in a column long ago. I mentioned that my son had admitted that the smell of eggplant parmigiana always reminded him of me. She, in turn, confessed that the smell of my moisturizer did the same of her. Sure, Adolfo perfume would be nice memory but, I’m sure, not nearly as personal.
It made me wonder, though, where and when our children or grandchildren become imprinted with the images, scents, or events that etch us into their minds. Of course, as I have shared often, we can leave a memory, good or bad at any time on anyone, even in a momentary action which we may not even recall. No one we grow to know leaves, or leaves us, without a trace.
We can make an impression on children who may not even be our own or whom we are related to, or even we may see often. Neighbors, teachers, other parents, coaches, and dozens of others who pass in and out of our lives each day leave their traces on all of us and we leave ours on them. I often say, it can be someone we chat with at the grocery store just once. The closer the relationship is, the deeper the impression is, of course.
As parents, we struggle through the years of molding a new person; it’s like twirling flaming batons while dressed in a straw suit with flash-paper fringe, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but that’s parenting. We put our best effort into our child-rearing and wait years for the results to show, hoping it pays off in the end.
Sometimes, the efforts and results don’t jive and that’s sad but, sometimes, we get lucky. One day, a grown adult who lives half a nation away makes the classic phone call to sing to us for our birthday or sends the cliché card for Mother’s Day, and it all comes full circle.
They do for their kids the comforting things we did for them. They tell us they remember that their sheets always smelled of lavender, or how we always volunteered to drive their friends home in snowstorms, and put their favorite yogurt in their lunch.
CHATTERBYTES: In my column from last week, paragraph 1, sentence 4 should have read, “Additionally, we know the indigenous people lived here tribally for over 2,000, and over 1,600 years before The Mayflower.”
I’d also like to report the update, as promised, on the repairs on 202S. As per PennDOT’s information, repairs were promised for last week. I did see numerous patches, but no real road work of any consequence. Stay tuned and thank you.
Join our readers whose generous donations are making it possible for you to read our news coverage. Help keep local journalism alive and our community strong. Donate today.
