The Scottish Exodus

Mom and Dad--This One is For You

My parents left Glasgow 35 hours ago. I tried my best to have a normal day after they left: cleaned the bathroom and spent a long time digging the mold from between the tiles, used all the vacuum attachments to suck the dust from the furniture and the carpet, disinfected and wiped all surfaces in the kitchen with a solution that began to disintegrate my knuckles. I wrote some poems, but didn’t write any letters. I exercised twice as hard in aerobics class—not skipping one sit-up, push-up, or double jumping jack-- to make up for all the days I didn’t go to the gym. I was going to bake some cookies after dinner, but I started doing my needlepoint and didn’t stop for the rest of the night. I also spent a good portion of the day sorting dirty laundry and sorting my thoughts about my relationship with my parents, and our recent travels together. I cried. I smiled.

I never felt that I was an easy child to raise, though I never overtly defied my mom and dad or broke any rules. I don’t think I was terribly demanding of material things either, short of the modeling classes I begged to take when I was 12. But I was emotionally demanding: clingy, not cuddly; overly sensitive, and a total basket case about doing normal kid things like playing in the yard, walking the dog with my sisters, or riding my bike alone. I grew out of most of it-- except for hugging my parents. I still hang onto each of them for a longer hug-time than most people normally allot. I always try to fill my arms with the most precious things and hang onto them for a long time, so that the specific moment or thing buries itself in my heart and eventually grows into a poem. My parents are my best poems. I hold them until the love and energy transfers itself permanently into my being. I made sure to hug them a lot while they were visiting.

Since my grandfather died in September 2000, I’ve also become more aware of mortality and age: I’ve had to deal with the fact that everyone is getting old—my sisters Amy and Angela are inching their way through university toward proper jobs, my friends are getting married and having kids, Andrew recently found gray hair on his chest and I found one in his eyebrow. This means that my parents are getting old too—my dad is 5-7 years closer to retirement and my mom starts conversations with the phrase When-Dad-and-I-move-to-Florida. They’ve been married for 27 years: and I remember when my mom was still putting my hair in a ponytail before third grade gym class, and when my dad would still play tickle with us on the living room floor after dinner. I’m old too, and this knowledge has made me more tender with people. I want warm moments so they make warm poems.

My relationship with my parents has transcended into a friendship based on balance and sharing woven from threads of memory and facts of the present. I learned some great things during their visit: my mom taught me how to needlepoint, and I am now working on a runner for a kitchen table I won’t have until I get back to the U.S. My dad hurried to finish reading a book he thought I’d like, and I’m now 36 pages into it and plan to discuss the story with him over email. They gave me advice about cooking, washing dishes, unclogging the tub drain, and holding everything together. I listened and didn’t interrupt. Likewise I gave them advice about living in Glasgow and walking uphill in Edinburgh. I also unraveled, the best I could, the reasons why the British public flew into hysterics at the mention of a possible meat shortage because of the foot-and-mouth CRISIS.

Yet my parents remain aware that I am still dependent on them as a daughter; they give continuously and unconditionally. If I overlook a blank triple word space on the Scrabble board, they move my word so I get more points; when I tell them about the extortionate prices of heating they leave some money to cover “their portion” of the electricity used--and it’s beyond the actual cost. They eat mine and Andrew’s favorite budget meal—make your own French bread pizza—like it’s manna from Heaven, and they tell me it’s because fresh baguettes are so difficult to find at U.S. grocery stores. When we travel places, I offer to buy my own lunch or bus ticket and they don’t allow me to, and then say, “That’s OK. We know you’ll do the same for us someday.”

So I try to give back to my parents somehow: I wash their laundry while they’re here, make coffee for my dad and I in the morning, and hug them before we go to sleep. Because of my parents visit to Scotland I got Bisquick and the Valentine’s card my dad always sends; I got a locals view of St. Serf’s church in the village of Dunning; I saw my parents duck down near the bottleneck dungeon in the ruins of St. Andrew’s castle; I watched them try on sweaters at the Edinburgh Woolen Mill, and joined them in the hunt for hatpins, Charles Rennie Mackintosh souvenirs, folk music, high tea and a pint of ale. I know that I won’t ever repay debts accrued from childhood into adulthood, so I write things to honor my mom and dad and try to live my life as honorably as they live theirs.

Mom and Dad—this one is for you.

Andrea K. Devenney

Copyright ©Andrea K. Devenney, 2009, all rights reserved.