Tell my parents I love them

Funny how the threat of death can pull the “I love you” out so easily. But the words were exchanged half a dozen times over the course of the week before/after dad’s surgery, and, imagine it, but nobody batted an eye, it wasn’t awkward, I wasn’t struck motionless from embarrassment.

Still, though, he’s a month past the surgery, and I haven’t said it again since. And I still haven’t managed to say it to my mom at all.

I guess we’ll never be a family that hugs and kisses and shares “I love you’s” left and right, but it would at least be nice if we could get to the point where we could say it without having to be crying and scared witless (or crying and relieved) at the same time.

A few weeks back I pointed out to my mom that we never say “I love you” to each other in our family.

Her response, a semi-distracted “Hmmm…” followed by “oh, I suppose you’re right, I never really thought about it. Well, we all know we love each other, right?”

And I said “yes, we all know it,” and then the conversation was over.

At the time I wasn’t sure that counted as an “I love you,” but maybe I should have just taken it and dropped it!

So, I made my mom cry today. Kind of different than telling her I love her.

Why can’t I understand that she is who she is, and I can’t (and shouldn’t) change her to be the mother I want her to be? Besides, she’s a fabulous mother as she is.

She’s scared witless with everything going on with my dad and I need to let her do the things she needs to do to deal with it, as much as they stress/scare/anger/depress me. I need to realise I’m not a little girl anymore, with the right to expect The Perfect Mommy. I need to let her lean on me through this, since she has nobody else and I at least have G.

I feel like scum.

[Update a couple of hours later. I came back from the gym and apologised to her for being a crappy daughter, and told her she could lean on me. She was very sweet in accepting my apology, but I’m not even sure if she knew what I was talking about. She gave me a totally different explanation for why she cried. I guess my rudeness wasn’t as apparent as I thought.

But anyhow, I still had pond-scum kinda thoughts, even if it didn’t come out in my words like I thought it did. So I still declare myself to be scum.

We did do an awkward sort of half-hug, though, so there’s that.]

When I was little, I’d tell my parents I loved them all the time, and vice versa. I can’t remember the point at which it stopped. All I know is here we are, and nobody says it. Everyone thinks it, everyone knows it holds true, so why don’t the words ever leave our mouths?

Now my dad has cancer and I want to tell him more than ever, but at the same time, I absolutely CANNOT tell him now, because… well, there’s some reason in my head I can’t articulate or bring myself to type.