October 17th

October 17^th

By John W. Vander Velden

The relationship between parent and child is always complex. There are so many facets that influence how the generations mesh...or not. I believe that each person is unique. Even siblings, though they may share genetics are not the same in every way. Life itself and all the challenges and setbacks that each face shape us. So though the same clay might be tossed on the potter’s wheel, the master artist forms each lump a bit differently.

So unique individuals build unique relationships in unique ways. Again it is life, isn’t it? So the relationship I had with my mother and father was very different than the relationship that my siblings had built over the years, not better, just different.

Perhaps it was the vast number of hours I shared with my parents. The unplanned twist of my life that in the end resulted in my lifelong profession led to my working side by side with my father for more than thirty years. But even that does not explain it all. For the profession we shared demanded long hours, early rising and working often till the sky held out its stars for our pleasure. The sheer mass of hours, the countless shared meals, the seven days a week surely made my connection different than others. And over those years, faults and blemishes cannot be hidden, and that came into the mix as well.

Yet it was in the understanding, as best as I was able, these complex imperfect people, and accepting them with their strengths and weakness while doing my best to manage my own life within the few hours left. So looking back I wonder, once again, exactly what was the relationship we shared. I wonder if I met their approval. My father did not understand me...not really. And I am certain, even now, I did not fully understand him. But how could I? I did not live through the depression, survive as a teenager in an occupied country, or leave family and EVERYTHING behind at twenty three.

Yet we must have understood enough to tolerate, even appreciate each other year after year. A partnership, if not financially, in the task. And we did not carry that task alone for mom had her part, a large part in the success of a business that seemed bound for failure at its onset. So the three of us worked together side by side, each with an important contribution as we faced together the steps forward and back as well to at long last arrive in creating a profitable endeavor.

So you can see the life I shared with those who reared me shaped the relationship. And now as I approach October 17^th I am reminded of the years we worked side by side, and I think about my mother and father, for this October 17th would have been mom’s 94^th birthday.