Ou

     The title of today's entry is not a typo.  But just as "typo" is short for "typographical error," today "ou" is short for "ouch."
     I'm pretty full of myself most of the time.  Admitting that I'm full of myself doesn't make me less full of myself.  It only means that I'm aware that my ego's normal state is one of over-inflation.
     My mom is 77 today.  She hasn't been to a doctor in well over two decades.  She's been pretty healthy, with only the normal aches and pains that come with having birthdays.  She doesn't want to be told she has high cholesterol or blood pressure because then she'd feel like she'd have to do something about it.
     I understand that kind of thinking.  Ignorance is bliss.  If it works, don't fix it.  What you don't know won't hurt you.  After all, none of us get out of here alive. 
   The other camp, the prevention camp, prefers to try and take a regular inventory based on (hopefully) statistical factors affecting mortality.  They'd call my mom's reasoning denial, something that doesn't bode well for a healthy mind, body, or spirit.
     I never imagined a world without my parents.  Then one day 12 years ago, my sister called to tell me our father had suffered a serious aneurysm and was in intensive care at a hospital in western New York.  We both bought plane tickets, she in L.A. and I in Phoenix, and met in Buffalo, rented a car, and drove to Medina, where he died two weeks later.  I'm grateful that during those two weeks there were times when he was fairly lucid and I got to talk to him a bit.  
     On my 42nd birthday, I kissed his funny old forehead and told him I'd see him in a few weeks.  Two days later, 25 February 1999, I got a call from my aunt, his sister, saying that he was "gone."
     Gone he was.  The forehead I kissed as he lie in the casket was not my dad's forehead.  It was the shell he inhabited while his spirit lived on earth.  He certainly was gone, and as far as I could tell, he'd never be back.  Those things hurt in a way not many other things can.
     I miss my dad.  I've missed him every day since that cold day in February 1999.  My kids miss him.  His wife misses him.  He is no longer here, and we must go on.
     I talked to my mom today and she's going to go to the doctor and get things checked out.  A neighbor helped her find a doctor and is going to go with her.  I felt much better after hearing that, as I began to see how I was becoming a bit over-confident that my mom would always be here.  
     Even at 53, I don't want to be an orphan.  My mom and dad did the best they could with who they were, and I love them.  When it comes time for the next one of us to check out, I want to have been a little more patient, a little more tolerant, and most of all, a little more kind.
     I hate saying goodbye.