In my mother's blog today she made reference to the sadness of parents who outlive their children. This was well-timed because a bunch of stuff came in a big jumble last night, so here goes nothing.

People talk about the tragedy of a parent outliving a child. It is sad when children die or when people die "too soon." No doubt. When I'm sad lately, if I can sit with it long enough, that's usually why. One minute Dad is watching Everybody Loves Raymond (or perhaps he was watching the presidential address--which, given his political sensibilities, makes for much better family folklore). The next minute he is lurching away and away.

On the other hand, sometimes when I hold my girl at night I think about Sally Field's character in Steel Magnolias. At her daughter's funeral she talks about being there when her daughter was born and being there when she died—that it was the most important and precious moment of her life. I can't really understand, but part of me understands absolutely perfectly. Part of me doesn't want to die before my girl does. Part of me doesn't want to leave her behind. Part of me wants to be the bookends... no, the parentheses that embrace her whole life.

I don't think this is about arrogance ("she'll be lost without me, nobody else can care for her like I can..."). I think this is about not wanting her to feel the existential drift of being out in the world, untethered to the ones who have literally known you your whole life.

I think it's this. At their best, parents are people who, if given the chance, would take their children's pain on themselves to keep their children from having to experience it. (Insert obligatory notes here about how a life without hardship is not really living, that sadness and pain are what help you embrace the good, blah blah blah blah blah. Whatever.) Anyway, I realize this now, having a daughter of my own. This feeling I feel for my little girl... I once had two people who felt that way about me. Now I only have one, because my father is dead. Someday, I will have none--unless my own mother becomes my parentheses.