As I have experienced more of life bit by bit, I have realized that yes indeed I am my parents’ son. My inadvertent habits and mannerisms seem to fall not from the tree. I speak about important and unimportant matters as indirectly as possible. I mince words when I have the chance almost as if I am an Ent in the bloodline of the great Treebeard. This often ironic tendency seems akin to my dad, who has a way of making requests and assertions in a rather indirect way. One particular day in my teenage years, my dad called the house from his office.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Sam.”
“Hey, Dad.”
From this point I do not remember much save the following nugget of hilarity.
“Sam, do you think you could get someone to mow the lawn? The grass is starting to look a bit high.”
“Okay,” quickly looking around the house I had an epiphany, “but Dad I’m the only one here.”
“Yeah, okay, well if you could just get someone to do it that’d be great.”
And thus my dad has a tendency for the indirect, which I have unashamedly inherited and employ on a regular basis, though I like to think that I appreciate directness. My wife, Esther, can attest to this point. However, she has caught on, and now she likes to do it too. “Sam, could you get someone to take out the trash?” Of course, no one else is living with us.
I have inherited of few of my mom’s foibles too. She is what most people would consider a perfectionist. I think in that case “most people” are in the right. She has a propensity for reading, rereading, and rerereading etc. what she has been writing, be it a play, a paper, or a book. After rereading whatever it is for the umpteenth time, she remains dissatisfied, for she knows something is out of place or needs some subtle adjusting. I have inherited this proclivity with unmitigated enthusiasm. Whatever it is that I so happen to be working on, I check and recheck until I am seeing double. I know Esther laughs to herself about this. I often let my mom read what I have been writing (though she does not read these silly blogs, for then I would likely never get around to posting a blog!). One particular instance I let her read a piece of fiction I had been crafting, and the following ensued.
“Wow, Sam, this is great!”
“Thanks, Mom. So what’s wrong with it?”
She listed a whole host of things. I chuckled to myself knowing that I would have it no other way. After completing her laundry list, I showed it to her again.
“Is it ready do you think?”
“Well, Sam, I don’t know if I would say it’s finished yet. Just let it sit awhile, and then after you have developed some more as a writer perhaps you can go back to it and finish it.”
This could be taken poorly, but I enjoy her keen eye and perfectionism, knowing that I have indubitably partly inherited it, though I would not flatter myself to think that I have her same perspicacious eye. There are numerous other habits and mannerisms my parents have passed on to me, more than I care to mention here.
With these thoughts, I have come to realize that I am unavoidably not self-made. I have been and am shaped by others, most notably my parents. This reality has brought to my attention the fact that I will be doing something analogous to my children. It’s a scary thought. My goodness! To think that there will be a few little human beings walking around in the wide world having inherited some of my silly foibles. Fortunately, they will have inherited some of Esther’s too. Parents have the potential to bless the world or to curse it. And which they choose the world will see on display through their children.
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