Once a month, a little group of us go out to a local restaurant that features a half-price hamburger on Tuesday nights. For a very small amount of cash, we get to spend a nice evening together. We use the time to share local information, catching up on the goings-on in our two towns, and in our lives.
We also share stories as women do so adeptly. There are six in our group. Six very different people, from different backgrounds and parts of the country so the threads of our conversations vary greatly. We fill our time together with lots of conversations and last night, one could only assume that the Cornavirus would be a hot topic, along with the day's primary elections. You might think.
But not
Not one word about either. Instead, we defaulted to what seems to be our common denominator, what pulls this group so willingly together each month. Our parents.
Were we high school girls, we would be seated at the lunch table in our cafeteria. We most likely would be gossiping for a while and invariably the names of our parents would come up in a cloud of complaint. There would be grousing. We would be relating "horror" stories and telling family secrets through slippery unsophisticated pouty lips. This pattern would continue for years to come. Interspersed with "boy talk" would be talk of lack of freedom, independence, privacy and understanding.
We've all roared through those years. We are not in high school and we've all spent hours and hours once again talking about lack of freedom, independence, privacy and understanding in new forms.
Those same parents have entered conversations again and again as we journeyed through life. We still have a lot to talk about and it's strange how we have been pulled together into a group that originally didn't even know of the common bond. Aging parents.
When we started out, this hamburger group, the dynamics were different. Some of the aging parents who were still alive, have passed away. Stories of their final years, months and days came to the table. Parents who were once discussed as difficult, demented, worrisome and exhausting, were now viewed in different lights. And, our journey continues. None of us still have two living parents. Half of us have lost both. Last night, all of them were in the spotlight. Their lives and legacies so much more important than current world events. Not one complaint. No grousing. Just facts, support and words that validated their places in our lives at long last.
We also share stories as women do so adeptly. There are six in our group. Six very different people, from different backgrounds and parts of the country so the threads of our conversations vary greatly. We fill our time together with lots of conversations and last night, one could only assume that the Cornavirus would be a hot topic, along with the day's primary elections. You might think.
But not
Not one word about either. Instead, we defaulted to what seems to be our common denominator, what pulls this group so willingly together each month. Our parents.
Were we high school girls, we would be seated at the lunch table in our cafeteria. We most likely would be gossiping for a while and invariably the names of our parents would come up in a cloud of complaint. There would be grousing. We would be relating "horror" stories and telling family secrets through slippery unsophisticated pouty lips. This pattern would continue for years to come. Interspersed with "boy talk" would be talk of lack of freedom, independence, privacy and understanding.
We've all roared through those years. We are not in high school and we've all spent hours and hours once again talking about lack of freedom, independence, privacy and understanding in new forms.
Those same parents have entered conversations again and again as we journeyed through life. We still have a lot to talk about and it's strange how we have been pulled together into a group that originally didn't even know of the common bond. Aging parents.
When we started out, this hamburger group, the dynamics were different. Some of the aging parents who were still alive, have passed away. Stories of their final years, months and days came to the table. Parents who were once discussed as difficult, demented, worrisome and exhausting, were now viewed in different lights. And, our journey continues. None of us still have two living parents. Half of us have lost both. Last night, all of them were in the spotlight. Their lives and legacies so much more important than current world events. Not one complaint. No grousing. Just facts, support and words that validated their places in our lives at long last.
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