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CLOSER THAN HE THINKS
He never felt that close to his parents…never thought of their relationship as perfection…he knew his parents loved him…but they were stingy with their affection.
That was who they were…he never thought of it as right or wrong…he imagines, now, they thought it was the best way to raise their child to be strong.
He remembers his mom being drawn to the Native American way of life…how they live and pray and think…he remembers how his dad loved to read…and draw pictures in pen and ink.
He remembers a distance between them…though there was love within his heart …because of the way they raised him…as he grew up…they grew apart.
Occasionally he’d call them…saying how they need to get together…hanging up knowing he had lied….it was a conversation he repeated often…until the day his parents died.
In the many years since they passed…he didn’t think about them often…but slowly…imperceptibly…his hard feelings began to soften.
He reads quite a bit, himself, now…he finds books about Native Americans beguiling…and he feels, as he turns the pages, somewhere…his mom is smiling.
And he imagines Sigmund Freud would have a theory that would delight, enchant…enthrall…if he saw his dad’s old pen and ink drawing…now hanging on his wall.
Yes, he never though he was that close to his parents but…
when he reads about Native Americans
or passes that old portrait in pen and ink…
He wonders…after all these years…
if they weren’t a little closer than he thinks.
