Doing What I Can
I just got back from a "family meeting". I can't remember the last time we had an official one. I think it may have been a few Christmasses ago when we first found out my Dad was sick...
It was all about my Mom trying to get her financial/home situation pulled together in the wake of my Dad passing. It's been a little over a year, and she's been keeping it together.
But now she's got insurance payments coming in, pensions from my Dad, her own work, and three of my brothers living at home. It's kinda messy, she's working a rediculous number of hours a week at a mail-processing plant, and she's not getting other things done that she would like to get done....like the house.
Our House has been under construction for as long as I can remember. If you count me being a "completed person", it's been longer in the making than some people. :) Now, Mom is looking ahead to the future of her retirement, and wanting to get all the House things in order before she's too old/on a set budget and not able to pay for the work to be done.
In the wake of my Father's passing, the responsability of getting the work done our hands. And I find myself face to face with the inevitable parallel and the resulting conclusion that: I am not the man my father was.
There are so many things that my father could do that I cannot do. I am simply physically and mentally incapable of living up to that measure. I cannot build a house. I cannot pour a cement floor. I cannot do the things he intended to do, and no ammount of "applying myself" is going to change that.
But, the great thing about having brothers is I don't have to be the man my father was. Neither do they. No one of us could. However, together we're a pretty fair approximation.
The Sons of Michael and Susan Marston.
I can't think of a thing I'd like to be more.
James.
It was all about my Mom trying to get her financial/home situation pulled together in the wake of my Dad passing. It's been a little over a year, and she's been keeping it together.
But now she's got insurance payments coming in, pensions from my Dad, her own work, and three of my brothers living at home. It's kinda messy, she's working a rediculous number of hours a week at a mail-processing plant, and she's not getting other things done that she would like to get done....like the house.
Our House has been under construction for as long as I can remember. If you count me being a "completed person", it's been longer in the making than some people. :) Now, Mom is looking ahead to the future of her retirement, and wanting to get all the House things in order before she's too old/on a set budget and not able to pay for the work to be done.
In the wake of my Father's passing, the responsability of getting the work done our hands. And I find myself face to face with the inevitable parallel and the resulting conclusion that: I am not the man my father was.
There are so many things that my father could do that I cannot do. I am simply physically and mentally incapable of living up to that measure. I cannot build a house. I cannot pour a cement floor. I cannot do the things he intended to do, and no ammount of "applying myself" is going to change that.
But, the great thing about having brothers is I don't have to be the man my father was. Neither do they. No one of us could. However, together we're a pretty fair approximation.
The Sons of Michael and Susan Marston.
I can't think of a thing I'd like to be more.
James.
Comments