The Shadow

Okay, so The Shadow was an old radio show. Not The White Shadow, the TV show starring Ken Howard, about a basketball coach. The Shadow. Oooooooh. Scary stuff.

Not like life.

Life's not scary.

I like shadows. They follow you everywhere you go. As long as there's light. It's too bad there's no lighting person to follow you/us around, so that we're always lit "just right".

Alas.


For me, The Shadow is something new. Sure, my buddy Saul's dad used to refer to me as The Shadow 'cause I always seemed to be trailing Saul. Then again, he also used to refer to Saul as The Friend of the Friendless. Which was partially true, but that's a different blog post.

Nope, The Shadow is what I see and feel following me. Real or imagined, it's the push and pull of my family. Really, my parents. I'm 40 and just now realizing the affect my parents have had on my life.

I've known all along that I cook the way I do because of my dad. I'm not one for recipes. I like change. I don't tend to get excited about the same thing. This tells me that I don't cook like my mom, who is a recipe follower. So is my mother-in-law. That's just not me.

I've been spending the past few months working on decluttering my parents' house. Decluttering isn't even a word, since it ends up underlined in red when I type it. But it's VERY much a word in my world.

Stuff.

My parents have lots of stuff.

They're all treasures in some ways to them. The stuff that was on sale. The stuff that they like/use/need.

Stuff.

They're complete and utter prisoners to their stuff.

The stuff in the freezer. 44 cups of grated cheese, 12 turkey legs, 9 packages of veal scallopini and 10 bags of "two bite brownies" are the numbers that resonate in my head. They speak to me. They haunt me. Sure, I want to have a freezer in the basement. For storage. But I want to get a stand-up freezer, so that I'm not digging through it, it's easier to rotate stock and things won't get lost.

Stuff.

The bedding. The bedding that is in abundance. That's a good word, abundance. There is an abundance of stuff that I've been coming across.

It wouldn't be right or fair to inventory all the stuff at my parents'.

But my having gone through much of it means that I've had a chance to learn a lesson. I've learned something from my parents.

Not to have too much stuff.

I was once on the track to Stuffdom. Then I made a turn at Jodiville. My wife has been so important in my learning about stuff. Jodi has stuff. Other than books, Jodi doesn't have a lot of stuff.

I've learned another lesson from my parents. Just because there's room/space, doesn't mean you have to fill it.

Another one. Just because it's on sale, doesn't mean you have to buy it, let alone buy a lot of it.

"They" say that we become like our parents. I can't control the way I look (other than plucking/shaving when needed, and accenting the positive) in terms of seeing my mother or father in the mirror as I age.

Getting it out in the open, I have issues. I have issues with my parents. I wouldn't say I have major issues with my parents though. They're good people, who have done good things for their children. There was always a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food on the table and we knew we were loved.

But since I'm 40 and Jodi's pregnant, AND my father was 40 when I was born.....well, I'm spending a lot of time these days looking at me and my dad and my mom and.....oh, and I'm decluttering my parents' house. And we bought a house.

There are many things running through my mind on a regular basis about me and my parents. But there's The Shadow.

The Shadow of fatherhood. The Shadow of my dad over me. The Shadow of life, of living, of death.

The Shadow.