At Johnson’s Foodtown recently I noticed the teenage girl running the register and the teenage boy bagging my groceries, and it was obvious they were “sweet on each other”. I’m old enough now that I can use antiquated, old man expressions like that. I half grinned and remembered how much fun I had working there when I was their age, but then my mind went somewhere else. I thought of you and daddy at that same age. He was working there bagging groceries and writing you love letters on paper sacks that he would deliver to you a block away where you ran the register at Matt’s Hamburgers. I looked at these two young ones with eyes so full of first love, and I imagined you and daddy with that same look. This blending of past and present in my mind was jolted with the harsh reality of imagining these kids before me as parents, because that is what you were. Not even a year after those young love days at the grocery store and hamburger place, came very hard adult months and years in factories, convenience stores and apartments. Standing there looking at them they looked like babies themselves, and looking back at the pictures of you back then I am reminded you were just babies too.
Later, I drove past Tanglewood/Terrace Apartments and remembered the years where I assisted Honey and her mama Debbie as they did apartment inspections, a great many of which were occupied by teenagers who were parents. Again, I thought of you as a little girl playing house, now a teenage mother playing the game for real, with much higher stakes. I thought about how hard it had to be to raise a baby at seventeen, and then I remembered how hard it was because Honey and I did it too, at nineteen. As a teenage parent, I know it was hard, and scary, but looking back as a child in that environment, from my perspective the “hard” wasn’t obvious, I just remember the love and joy and fun.
The other day I stopped and got a biscuit at the Qwik Mart at the end of our road, where a girl in her early twenties rang up my order and I thought of the years you spent there working third shift when I was a baby. I thought of the years you spent as a manager of that same store when I was in elementary school. I thought of the hours I spent there eating good food, ice cream, playing video games and with toys and looking at all of the VHS tape rentals. I remembered feeling like you knew everyone and they all knew you and how that gave me a feeling I only understand now as an adult as pride.
Looking at those years from the vantage point of half a century of life, I realize now that we grew up together. I was a baby, but you were still just a child. I know there had to be a million things you didn’t know or understand — you were learning on the job — but the one thing you knew was the most important, and it was instinct for you: unconditional love. As a parent myself, I have no doubt there are memories that haunt your mind of decisions, indecisions, or regrettable words, but I hope you find comfort in knowing I don’t remember any of those things. I can only assume they have been diluted by the overwhelming flood of good memories. In so many ways our lives followed very similar paths. I guess it should be no surprise that much of the good I’ve done in my life came by trying to do what I thought my mama would have done in the situation. The single most prevailing thought I have when I think of you is that I never knew a single day where I didn’t know I was loved, wanted, and cared for. The greatest gift I can give to you is the promise that I will do everything in my power to make sure the people I love will be able to say the same.
There’s a lot of flowery stuff I could say, but I think the best thing I can say is what I’d hope to be able to hear from my adult children, the goal of every parent: you raised a healthy and happy child who is grateful for all the gifts you’ve given. I know that was your goal and I wanted to tell you that you achieved your goal.
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