When I grow elderly…

… I hope that I will have a good relationship with my son.

I was at the doctor’s office yesterday. I see an Endocrinologist every six months to monitor my Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (it’s an autoimmune disorder that causes an underactive thyroid). While I was waiting (for 45 minutes… but who was counting) to be called back, an elderly woman came in with an older man, who I presumed to be her son (which was later confirmed). She was kind of zany, talking loudly about her dog, then her house, then televisions (her son is going to buy a 42″ LCD by Sony when he needs to replace his).

It was sweet. He was patient with her. Let her talk and stumble between cogent thoughts. Kept up with her ramblings.

I hope that when I’m old and crazy (because you know I’ll be kind of bat-sh*t crazy by then), Kola will be there; to take me to doctor visits where we have to wait an hour to be seen then drive me to the pharmacy to wait for my numerous prescriptions for Alzheimer’s and whatnot; to be patient when I ramble (which he should get plenty of practice in the next 60 years); to listen to me noncoherently chide him for buying a 42″ LCD Plasma whatever-we’ll-have-by-then television/retinal projection unit/space goggles. I’m not worried about the next 20 years – I got that. I’m curious about the next 50. I know that when it comes to it, I’ll do the same for my parents (who may or may not already ramble), and hopefully I can raise Kola equally as well as they did me. I think that the relationship a parent has with their child is most evident after the breach of adulthood. A parent can only do their best, and they can only hope for the same.

♥

The years teach much which the days never knew.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What do you think? What is the measure of good parenting? What are you aspirations for 50 years from now? Share in the comments or on the FaceBook.