this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
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When you are a grown up you don't realize you are watching your parents die.
I definitely started to see my parents decline in my early 20s. They're still going, but age is coming for them fast.
Even when my mother was in a hospital bed we’d brought into the house, thin like a toothpick, I was still wondering what her odds of survival were. It’s so easy to be in denial. Then one moment she just stopped breathing and that was it.
Thank you for telling me. That was beautiful. I’m crying at McDonalds.
I had a Peruvian GF for a while and she spoke with her mother back in Peru every single day.
That inspired me to contact my father a little more. I live in the same city as him. I should reach out so much more. His wife tells me he loves when I’m there.
I did get him an xbox for christmas a few years ago, and we play world of tanks together. He’s nearing 80, and knows the specs and history of like every tank. Like which battles it was deployed it, what engineering challenges they had to design it, etc. He was a mechanic in the army and he’s a geek.
He’s rather inhibited in many ways. Same template as me, but less lucky with the psychedelics, yoga, parties, ceremony, festivals that helped draw me out and teach me to be social.
He’s got social skills of course. He’s wise. He overcomes that introversion, and his wife helps push him out and connect him. He loves to tell stories of technical problems he solved in the forest service. Seems to have an eidetic memory for all things mechanical.
But if he’s not exercising, he starts to fade. Luckily he does exercise. I also have to hold back my own desire to push him on health stuff. What I keep running into is that it’s not really my right to extend his life if he doesn’t want to. I’m conflicted about how selfish I’m being when I’m encouraging him to take care of himself.
He keeps mentioning that his father died around his age. Finally I was like “Dad, Grandpa died in an industrial accident. It wasn’t his natural death”.
I dunno. It’s a weird thing, but he seems a little too resigned to death. Or I’m in denial again. I don’t want to lose him, but I will.
Man you didn't have to say that.. :(
Life is short. Time moves quicker and quicker and you always think you have more... It just occurred to me last month that my mom will turn 70 next year and just how little time I have left with my parents.
Yeesh that's a dark hard truth I've begun living. All three parents on their own glide slope and it's just one mild crisis after another.