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I can hear. I take a swig. I can see. Another swig of coffee. This exercise of being thankful is working, as no one bothers me in the local diner. However, what on Earth do I drink to next?
Later I go home and literally talk to myself: just me and my voice in my government-sponsored apartment as a mentally ill adult. I don’t have the pressures of a job or kids in my life. The whole thing is so pathetic, I laugh. I am too bored to be bored. I feel cheated and sorry for myself and kind of entertained by myself all at the same time. My mind goes back to a message of a therapist long ago, about my parents: they did the best they could.
I drink to accepting my second-rate life.
Once upon a time, I was a pre-teen who was brilliant. I will never capitalize on that brilliance, not in this universe.
Everyone thought my parents were great parents. We were the special family. We were, the four of us siblings, four “brains.” Our dad didn’t earn a lot of money, but we shined at the private school we all attended. “There is something about this family that is very special,” the principal once said in public. My parents both had charm and were extremely well-liked.
At this point in my article I was going to list, to condemn, every aspect of their raising me and my three brothers. However, that is not proper. They brought me into this world, but did they do the best they could?
“How much is the fruit salad?” I put the $3.50 on the counter.
I accept that there will never exist—at least not in this universe—anything but a guy who had a gene that was open to mental illness that was exploited by bad, yes, bad parents.
Acceptance. My good, sweet, delightful, charming parents were guilty of high crimes, selfish crimes. They were guilty of bad actions—selfish, premeditated bad deeds.
I munch on delicious pineapple and mouth-watering grapes. I was really settling in. I accept my lot in life as a mentally ill adult. Yes, the magic word: “forgiveness.”
When I was in high school, as my mother nurtured me from a breakdown, she gave me the song “Ebony and Ivory” with Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder to play endlessly. “There is good and bad in everyone.” I trash that “they did the best they could” stuff. And you know what? I do not know anyone who does the best they could.
The Bible is full of good people who do bad things, I realize as I stare out of the diner window at the furniture store, then look at rows and rows of soft drinks and pre-wrapped chocolate mousse. Along with the chunks of grapes and apples come chunks of closure.
I start to think back. I didn’t mourn my father’s death. I fooled myself into believing I was mourning my selfish, indulgent, hot-tempered father.
“Your Dad had a heart of gold,” my first cousin will say.
He did. And he shared that warmth with me hundreds of times. But he didn’t do the best he could! Neither did I, come to think of it. I was cruel. I was bad. I did bad things. I tested him to see if he loved me (He passed).
Here is the lesson. People are by nature often selfish. No parent is perfect. Otherwise, they would be angels and not people. Imperfect love is still love.
It is around the time of year that my father died. I pray for him that he reach a higher realm of paradise in heaven.