Last night I received a phone call from a couple that used to know my parents when they all lived in Ohio before I was born. My parents used to throw huge parties and have people to play bridge all the time. The couple had been in touch with my parents after they left Ohio and moved to New York and then New Mexico. The couple knew that my mom had passed away, but then they fell out of touch with Dad.
That happened a lot. My Dad lost touch with lots of people after my mom died. Either he didn’t have the energy to keep up those relationships since he was busy trying to figure out how to raise two girls on his own, with limited, if any help at all or he didn’t care anymore or he was used to Mommy keeping up all the social events and friendships. Whatever his reason, I don’t blame him, but it would have been nice to have those people in our lives.
When I was on the phone with this couple last night, I could hear in their voices how much they loved my parents and how sad they felt for me and my sister knowing that we’ve lost both our mother and our father. I’m not sure if they could hear that I was crying. But responding to their questions took a long time because I had to try to stop the tears, clear my throat and stop my nose from running each time.
It turns out the couple lives in the same city as me and wants to meet. They want to have me over for dinner or take me out to meet them, their daughters and their grandchildren. I’m excited to meet them but know it will be a bittersweet meeting. I just know I’ll start crying at some point, which is not the first thing I like to do in front of strangers. Maybe I shouldn’t think of them as strangers since they knew my parents so well. Yeah, that’s the ticket; they’re not strangers at all! So they’ll be fine when the crying starts…right?
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