Ed (not his real name), who lives with me at Barnabas House, just lost his father. His mother died a few years ago.  His dad was 92 years old and under hospice care. Ed’s relationship with his dad was very strained, and he admitted that he thought of them as dead to him long before they actually died. However, he’s experiencing a stronger reaction than he expected to his dad’s death.

Both of his parents came from large families, but none of their siblings are still alive. It’s eerie for him that the entire older generation is gone. Ed also is troubled that there’s not a family home to which he can return. There’s his dad’s house, which his brother will probably end up owning, but there’s no family place to gather. It was different when his mother died. Back then, his father was still there, making plans for life without her. Now there’s no one.  

We talked about all this after our prayer time the night his dad died. I have also lost both parents, my dad in 2014 and my mom in 2022. Though the relationships I had with my parents were much different from those he had with his, I could identify with much that he was saying. It still seems odd to me that dad and mom are gone and their house belongs to someone else. They, too, were the last members of their generation on either side of the family. I think of my mom’s sisters, eccentric characters who made family gatherings memorable. It almost seems they left no trace behind, though I know they did since I know of their influence on their still-living children. I even think some about my dad’s brother, the only other sibling either of my parents had, though he died more than 50 years ago.

My perception of my parents has changed since my mom’s death. Specifically, their lives seem complete and settled in a way that wasn’t the case while they were alive. My dad’s life didn’t seem quite done while my mom was still living, probably because she talked so much about him and still had many of his possessions. Now, their lives are fixed, almost like stars in the sky by which I navigate but which have a remoteness and immutability about them.

They may be unchanging, but that doesn’t mean my thoughts about them are similarly static. I think especially of dad as he might have been at my current age. He must have undergone similar bodily changes, noticed how others’ reactions to him changed as he aged, reflected on a similar expanse of days gone by, and developed a similar awareness that his future was being shortened. I have more appreciation for him, and see myself as following in his footsteps. It’s like I’ve discovered that all along I’ve been walking in tracks that someone else made in the snow. Sure, I’m different from him, but also very much like him. And I’m also aware that, as I’m following his steps, he was following the path of his dad, who was following his dad, and on and on back to someone who spoke a different language, lived on a different continent, and couldn’t imagine the life I now live.

Both my parents now seem more exceptional and complex than they ever seemed before. They always had just been there, their accomplishments taken for granted, important but also ordinary in many ways. Now they both seem like remarkable people who did remarkable things. This is the opposite of walking in the footsteps of others I just described. They followed others, but also struck out on their own. When my dad was younger than my oldest grandson is now, he was a soldier stationed in Belgium, a combatant in a great war. His teenage girlfriend was back home, doing her part, waiting for his letters and sending off her own. Those long-ago lives now seem to me like the stuff of screen and story. What fears they must have fought, what yearnings filled their hearts! Then the war was over, dad came home, they married, and they built a life. I’ve long known the details, but the facts used to seem certain and unalterable, as if their destinies were written out and they just had to follow the script. Now I realize there must have been many possible paths, and it took courage, foresight, and wisdom to choose the one they did: the schooling, the business, the church, the home, the friends, the hospitality, the vacations, the celebrations. How did they manage to imagine all that? I’m ready to not just appreciate them but also to congratulate them for their performance in the improv theater known as life. Way to go, dad and mom! Take a bow!

I’m thankful for these new insights into Jim and Lois Ritzema, aka dad and mom. Knowing them as I’ve come to see them since their deaths helps me to know myself. I’m them to an extent, but also unlike them by way of choice and chance. Their flames burned bright, then flickered and went out. Mine will as well. It may be many years away, but the view to that future is becoming less obstructed. Dad and mom, we’ll be together sooner rather than later.