Losing Your Parents

May 17^th 1992, a day that changed my life forever.

Twenty-one years ago on May 17th, 1992, my mom passed away. Could 21 years really have already passed without me seeing or talking to or being with my mother? Could that really be possible? I had just turned 46 years old ten days before she left us and it was right after Mother’s Day, 1992.

A lot has happened since then. Her four children and her 11 grandchildren have all gotten 21 years older. Some grandchildren have had children of their own so Mom would be a great-grandmother now were she still alive. Of course, were she still alive, she’d be more than 100 years old. 107 to be exact.

Dad passed away four months later. Those were the saddest two events of my life. It was like a double blast from a shotgun. Bang! Bang! It took years for me to accept the loss and I probably still haven’t accepted it completely and I probably never will.

To be able to dial 213 283 8776 on the phone again and to hear Mom or Dad say, “Hello” would be wonderful. To be able to get in my car and drive the 8 hours to LA and knock on the door and see them come to the front door and hug and kiss them. That would be heaven. To watch them moving about the house on Violeta Drive in Alhambra and going about their day, wow, that’d be so wonderful!

To watch Dad watering the lawn and his tending little tomato garden and see him taking a nap on his bed would be like magic. To go into Mom’s room and see her watching TV and reading one of her magazines and look up and ask, “How you doing, hon?” with love in her eyes would be so wonderful and yet while they were alive, naturally, we all took it for granted because they were always there. It was incomprehensible to imagine them not being there and yet, it’s been twenty-one years.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and do a double take because I think I see my father. To think they never saw my children graduate from high school and graduate from college and go on with their lives becoming strong, happy adults involved with their lives with relationships and jobs and homes. Sometimes I look at my children and think, “Wow, they are my Mom and Dad’s grandchildren.

And to think I’ll never see Mom or Dad again for the rest of my life?? Unfathomable! And yet, that’s how life is. Time passes and we get involved with our lives and we’re busy and we do things we believe are important and things change. I remember a song by Bob Dylan, called To Ramona,  where he sings: “Everything passes, everything changes, just do what you think you should do.” And I guess that’s how life goes, so in order to make sense of it we have to accept and respect what it is and go on doing what we believe is important and try to make the world a better place.

Of course I now realize everything that Mom and Dad did for us. They brought us here and worked hard all their lives and did everything for us and I often find myself sitting back and offering gratitude for all their hard work bringing me here and helping me become who I am and giving me everything I have which is quite a lot. I wish they could have met Trudi who I’ve been with now for 12 years. I wish they could see our home and how their grandchildren are doing.

But maybe like Trudi says, if there’s anything to religion, maybe they’re looking down at us all right now with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts like they always did while they were alive. If that’s true, I’d just like to say, thank you Mom and Dad. I miss and love you very much, Love, Phil

 Mom and Dad as newlyweds