Full Circle

Like many young college adults around the world, my daughter is home, trying to keep as far away from Covid-19 as possible.  I worry about her because she came home already sick.  She has a pretty good inner ear infection and according to her own words, she has been sick since we dropped her off the first of January. 

She informed me of this shortly after we got back from picking her up two weeks ago.

“Mom, I have been so sick this entire semester.  Every time I feel a bit better something new hits me.”

My heart sank.

What do I do?  I go into total mom-mode.  I pull out my wild crafted teas and tinctures; make homemade soups by the potful’s.  Take her temperature every few hours and dole out the aspirin.  Rubbing her back while the heating pad kicks it up a notch, I talk about non-sense things to make her giggle.  I bring plate after plate of nutritious snacks and home cooked meals.  I do her laundry and clean up her room. (a bit)

I baby her.

Making sure her needs are met is what I do best.  I am a mom, Master of Aaaallllmost Everything.  I shake my cape.

I enforce the “boys” to walk on tippy-toes. 

“Do not bother your sister; she’s sick”

I lay down an ultimatum, “If you are not better by this time tomorrow, I call the doctor.”

Which is so funny.  My daughter is an adult.  She can drive, vote and has lived on her own for almost a year.  What right do I have to not only go through with my threat but actually talk with the doctor’s office as if she were still a teen living under my roof?

“Hey Sweetie, mom talked to the doctor’s office, they can get you in in an hour if we hurry.”

“Thank you, mommy.”

Like my daughter, I too left home right after I graduated from high school.  I left home two weeks after I graduated, she left two days.  Unlike her, I lived only a few miles from home.  She lived five hours away.

She is very independent, strong willed and extremely tenacious.  I was too at her age. That is where our similarities end at this stage of life.

She is focused and works very hard to achieve her goals.  She is the most organized kid at her age that I know.  She sets her mind to something and gets it done. She is also  fearless.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I had a pretty big negative event that happened upon my life.  It, at the time, destroyed me.  I didn’t actually move home during this period, but I did spend a lot of time at my parent’s house for emotional support.

I remember drinking a lot of beer at their house sitting on the back patio just feeling sorry for myself.  Lifeless.  Hopeless.  Sick.

“Now Chris”, my mom says, “It’s perfectly normal to sit around the house and drink beer all day and feel the feelings you are having.  Just remember this, we have all been there and sometime soon you need to move on.”

My mom is in education.  She never minces her words.  I love that about her.

It was my own daughter coming home sick that made me think of that time in my life.  It made me think of my dad.  My illness was in my soul.

He took out his dad cape and became, “Dad, Master of Aaaalllllmost everything.

Instead of chicken noodle soup, he cooked chicken on the grill just the way I loved it, no BBQ sauce.  Instead of wild crafted tincture, he uncorked really good wine, continuously. He didn’t do my laundry, (Actually my mom did that.  Thanks mom.) He took me shopping and together we bought out the store.  Meh, it was frivolous stuff but still good medicine.  He babied me.

So yesterday as I am doing dishes I thought about that dark time in my past.  I think how lucky I am to be Art’s daughter.  I believe I am, “Mom, Master of Aaaallllmost Everything”, because he was, “Dad, Master of Aaaallllmost Everything.”

It has come around, full circle.