2/20/2011 - placement is the question. . .

My parents came back from a road trip to LA the other day to see some childhood friends.  I called my mom after getting home from work, and I probably talked 10% of the time.  At most.  The other 90 were hers to gush about how fun the trip was, and how great it felt to reconnect with people they had not seen in 30 some-odd years.  She laughed as she recounted some of the childhood stories they shared, the experiences of growing up in Taiwan, their friends' children.  In short, she sounded happy.

When I think of all the happy people in the world, my mother is not one that comes to mind, first or at all.  I've seen photographs of a younger her where I could easily be convinced that she was happy, but in more recent years, I've always thought that she somehow forgot what happiness feels like.  Often, she reminds me of Ruth, from Six Feet Under, and how her daughter Claire had once described her as "just so fuckin' sad all the time."  There were times when I couldn't have described my own mother better.

I want her to be happy, and I struggle sometimes with how to help her be.  One foolproof way comes to mind, though: grandkids.  I see her holding my cousins' children, and wonder if somewhere inside, she feels a void that only my sister can fulfill.  I don't wonder if, actually; I just wonder how deep that feeling is: is it closer to the surface, or buried deeper within?  Its placement is the question, not its existence.

I asked my parents to read an entry of this blog once, one I wrote largely with them in mind, largely with my mother in my thoughts.  It was this one, about how my family and I used to spend the Chinese New Year.  She wrote me back and said that it was wonderful, and it reminded her of her parents so much, which simultaneously made her feel great and devastated at the same time, even after all these years.  She said that she forces herself not to think of them sometimes, or buries herself in those memories at others.  Either way, the depth to which she misses them is unfathomable.  I don't think I miss anything or anyone as much as she does them.

She worries about my dad's health, his continual recovery from heart surgery last summer.  She frets about life post-retirement, about money, her 401(k).  She worries about my sister living in Santa Cruz.  Linda graduates in a few months, and I know she wants her to embark on the adventure of her life, find success in all she does, be happy.  Similarly, I know she worries about me living in the rough-and-tumble of a city, the route I use to bike to work, the activities in which I choose to participate.  I know she wants me to be successful in my career and be fulfilled in love, be happy.

This morning, I read the following on a friend's blog: truly happy people want others to be happy.  And it occurred to me that my mother has never, in all her life, wanted anything else but to see her loved ones happy.  For once, she was the first person I thought of when I thought of happiness in this way.  Maybe this whole time I was worrying about her happiness, questioning its existence, I should have been looking for its placement instead.  Had I done so, I may have seen that she was already one of the happiest people of all.