Things No One Warns You About

 There are things in life that no one warns you about, that no one prepares you for. The thing, the moment, comes at you suddenly in right field, a screaming line drive, where one you were contentedly watching the dandelions grow. One minute, all is right, well, and peaceful; the next: WHAM! Life takes a nasty bounce and slams you right in the kishkus. And, much like Shakespeare’s version of Caesar, you look around in vain, seeking someone to ask, “Et tu, Brute?”

For example, you cruise through high school, convincing yourself that you are a grown man or grown woman, knowing you aren’t really quite ready, yet, but nevertheless pretending to be ready to take on the world – if for no other reason than to convince yourself, and your parents, that you are ready for more and more freedom, more and more responsibility. When it is finally given to you, willingly or begrudgingly, you have, indeed, made another step towards adulthood. “What do you mean, it’s my responsibility to get the oil changed?” But, you’re still not quite there, yet. So, when it’s time to go off to college or trade school, again, more responsibility is laid upon your brooding shoulders and stiffening neck, adding resiliency, strength, experience and knowledge to your broadening spectrum of adulthood. But you’re still on Mom and Dad’s health insurance, they still partially cover tuition, and Mom does your laundry when you go home on weekends. You’re more the adult, but still not fully there, yet. 

Then it happens: graduation. You get a job - which you may hate, but at least it’s a job. You celebrate, going out with friends, eating and having a few drinks. A good part of that first check goes to cover the night’s fun. No one told you that check was supposed to last thirteen more days and cover gas, groceries, electric, new underwear (which you’ve been putting off for three semesters), and half of next month’s rent. Welcome to adulthood. 

Or, when your first child is born. Everyone tells you about the small, cuddly, soft, and snuggly little baby. What to Expect When You’re Expecting tries to set the stage – caveat parentus – and your own mom, your own dad, even your in-laws all try to keep you grounded on what’s ahead without totally deflating your balloon by tempering your expectation with their own experience. Finally, these wizened veterans of child-to-parent combat, including being the recipient of the broken heart award, with clusters, just smile as you assure them that you know just what is ahead and how it’s all going to go. After all, you have Google, YouTube, and AI to make it so much easier than when they had you a few decades ago. Then the first night arrives. The baby awakes at 1am, crying. Momma gets up and feeds Little One and then it happens. You smell something like the underwear of a week-dead bum that had been eating summer roadkill for three days before he passed. Realizing that parenthood requires dooty duty, you carefully peel back the diaper tabs and unfold it to discover the most vile and disgusting, loathsome load imaginable, wondering how your 7 pound 3 ounce baby produced such a voluminous mess, both in volume and smell. Gagging, you wonder why Adam and Eve inventer children in the first place. Obviously, you think, your mom truly hates you because she didn’t warn you of this miniature Superfund sight, and trying not to pass out from the lack of oxygen as you hold your breath, you are further assaulted by a warm blast as your Little Squirt gives you a little squirt just as you gasp for air. No one told you that you would be cleaning your own mess from your baby on your first night as a parent. True story, dear reader….true story.

I hope you’ve gotten a chuckle out of these, perhaps even nodding sagely while thinking, “Yep – that’s true.” I’m smiling myself, not so much because that happened to me but because it happened to my own daughter just a short time ago. When she complained, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”, I chuckled, remembered my own plight, and said, “I tried to tell you…”

But, recently, as a grown-ass man, I’ve had another of those “no one told me about this moment” moment. And, this one isn’t as funny. 

My Grandpa, Mom’s dad, died when I was in college, I think 1995. Five years later, my own Dad died. A short time after that, my Grandma, Mom’s mom, died, also. In less than ten years, Mom lost her dad, her husband, and then her mom. I don’t remember if we went to see Mom, or if Mom came to see us, but she and I were up, early, drinking coffee, telling stories, and talking about those three people. Suddenly, Mom stopped, looked at me, and began crying. “I just realized,” she said, “I am both a widow and an orphan.” This was a far cry from Annie singing about Mrs. Flannigan and Daddy Warbucks. This was my Mom, a fifty-something year old woman, sitting next to me, crying at the losses she had experienced. I was at a loss for words. I remember thinking, at first, how silly it was to consider herself an orphan – after all, orphans were children. Then, it dawned on me: Mom was Grandma’s daughter. Adult or not, her Mom was gone. Indeed, Mom was an orphan. 

My Dad died in 2000. Mom died in February of this year. With Mom gone five months and a day, and Dad gone twenty five years, ten months, two weeks, and a day before Mom, and having had that conversation with Mom, I was somewhat prepared, at a certain level, to understand and grasp that I was an adult orphan, myself. 

But, you say, my theme is things that we aren’t prepared for in adulthood.   I’ve just admitted I was somewhat prepared for that feeling. Thank you for following along, dear reader. So now, after a peripatetic journey through things we haven’t been prepared for, I come to my own adult surprise of what I was not prepared for:

I am now the senior, patristic statesman of the family. 

To be fair, I am not completely alone. I have three other siblings, so we now make up the eldest generation. Although not alone, I am the oldest. While perhaps not the leader de facto or de jour, I'm at least number one in the program, if not in the hearts of others. We will be the ones that our kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews, will turn to to learn, to hear the stories of family past, of places lived and things done, of what made us “us” and them “them.” 

I was not ready for this transition. Mom was healthy, sharp, and completely independent up until the moment she died. I could call her, anytime, for recipes, for advice, to tell her a story or to hear one of her own, to get a weather report or to share the rain and temperature here in Oklahoma, to brag about her grandkids or my own grandson, to hear about her aching knees or recovery from cataract surgery, or just to say “Hi” and hear an “I love you” in return. There was no gradual decline, no transition from me as son-to-caretaker or from her as strong mom to woman-who-needed-constant-care, slowly surrendering to time and declining health. The change literally happened in an instant via a phone call from 457 miles away, my sister telling me what I knew a moment before she said the words: Mom was gone. 

The Lord gaveth on March 5, 1947. The Lord tooketh away on February 10, 2026. Blessed be the name of the Lord. But in that moment, Mom and Dad, our parental generation, was gone, leaving me and mine behind. 

I guess it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. It’s not as if we were 10, 7, 4, and 1 year old orphaned children. On the other end of the spectrum, it’s not as if we were left the Walmart Empire, thrust into the spotlight of the world economic forum. We don’t have huge estates to manage, the Meyer Magnate, if you will. But, perhaps that’s part of it as well. With a rap of the judge’s gavel and the thunk of the court reporter’s stamp, Janet Meyer legally ceased to exist. Left in her place were the four of us, co-executors of a simple non-estate estate legally referred to as “muniment of title.” Then, with a couple of contracts, a wire transfer or two, and an old-school paper check, even that was done. We are left with the memories and a few precious mementos of Mom and Dad, and the responsibility to carry on the stories, legends, and honor of the family is now ours. 

And, for all of this, I was not prepared.

Someone described the generation that lived and fought in World War Two as “the greatest.” That might be true to historians, to Europe, perhaps even to the world since then. But to me, the greatest generation was Mom and Dad. 

Now, with them gone, will my kids and grandkids say that of me, some day? 

I can only hope so, while helping prepare them for the day that they, too, become the greatest generation to those who follow them.