Retirement

As far as I am concerned I am officially retired. King thinks differently. That is okay. He may have his delusions.

My "retirement" was fairly unspectacular. I had been telling the "powers that be" at work for months I was going to be done at the end of 2016. I am not quite to social security age, but by the end of 2016 King will have reached that magical age and  his pension and social security would even things out. (Yeah, I know, if we were smart I would keep working until I reached official social security age, but we are impatient to get on with the next chapter in our lives). At any rate, life has a way of moving in strange ways and one day as I was leaving for work King looked at me and said, "Why don't you give your notice early?" And then added, "If we need extra money you can look for something part-time." I choose to ignore the part-time part.

I needed no further encouragement. I have been working since my first summer babysitting job in 1970. That's a lot of years to be working. King has a pension. I don't.We will be doing a lot of belt-tightening. I happen to like hot dogs and macaroni and cheese.

Mom's retirement was as unspectacular as mine. Mom had been working in the lab at Dog Life, the dog food factory Dad managed, and both Mom and Dad decided it was time for her to be through working. I believe Mom had come to that decision many years before, but for some reason Dad didn't see it that way. Apparently she and Dad had discussed her retirement extensively and Dad told her he would begin looking for a replacement. I guess it was easier said than done. He brought her an inexpensive piece of jewelry one day -- a very large gold locket -- and told her he was sorry but it finding a replacement was more difficult than he imagined and she would have to work a little longer. Or at least that is the way Mom tells it. Dad probably would have had a different version.

At any rate at some point Mom did get to leave the job and the two of them moved into their "retirement" home along Lake Michigan. Dad continued to work for a few more years until he decided he, too, had had enough and he left. After 30-plus years working at the same place he came home with a cast-iron ashtray with a dog bone logo and a family portrait. The same portrait that someone pooped on when they broke into his office in the mid-1970s. And yes, we know who did it. It was the same modus operandi several other business owners had the pleasure of dealing with, but small towns being what they are no one ever call the police. Dad eventually gave the ashtray to King who has a propensity to smoke too many cigars, and when King decided he was going to cut back on cigars we passed it along to my sister who thinks no one knows she still smokes.

So now, for the first time in a long, long time, I find myself with a plethora of extra time and not a definitive way to spend it. Before there was this nagging, "I have to get xxxx done before I leave for work," and now project xxxx does not seem so pressing.

I am grateful for rainy days so I can postpone working on getting my garden beds ready. King and I have been caretakers on a hobby farm for the past five years so juggling gardening and employment was always a chore. Not so much now. I am still working on my tote bags to list in my Etsy shop, but even that can be done at a leisurely pace. Ahhhh the life of the unencumbered.

So King and I have started getting ready for our next chapter in life. At some point -- probably when he is eligible for social security in a few months -- we will be traveling cross country in a small, still-to-be-purchased travel trailer. That is a lot of togetherness.I will be encouraging the exploration of a lot of golf courses.He will be encouraging my exploring flora and fauna with camera in hand.

After 40 years together we know our limits and don't test them.

Generations

The first piece of furniture Mom ever purchased was a bentwood rocking chair. Although much of Mom and Dad's possessions have been dispersed, none of us could part with the chair. My next older sister currently has custody of it.

One of my earliest memories of Mom is her rocking my younger sister and I in that chair. Every day after lunch we would read books and then Mom would rock and rock and rock and sing to us. Mom was tone deaf. In later years we realized just how horrible a singer she was, but it never bothered us she did not come close to a perfect pitch, when we were in her arms and she sang to us nothing else mattered.

I rocked our own children. We had our routines that changed a little as we added to our brood. But for each child Mom's lullabies were pulled out and sung, and occasionally replaced by Bob Dylan. But we rocked and sang all the same. I did the same for our grandchildren. One must be careful what one sings to children as they will often pull out inappropriate songs at inappropriate times.

I recall a time we were sitting on a beach in St. Augustine with Mom and Dad and the grandchildren thought it would be a good time to belt out Rainy Day Women. All I could say to Mom was, "Well, they will keep you humble, won't they?"

I am visiting our daughter for a few weeks. I listened as she put her young twin sons down for a nap. The boys are busy, busy, busy. Going all the time. When nap time comes they are ready for some sleep. I listened to all the familiar lullabies and a few I did not know. I heard the familiar creak of a rocking chair.

I miss those snuggling times. I miss the feel of little hands in mine. I miss the feel of warm breath on my neck and butterfly kisses on my cheek. I miss grubby little hands working hard fill buckets with sand.

And I feel my daughter's exhaustion...that bone-weary feeling of utter frustration when the boys tonk one another on the head with a block, or fight over the same matchbox car when there are 30 more almost identical cars in the toy box, or cry when they don't want to come inside for dinner.

And when I tell her to enjoy every minute because these times will pass too quickly, I know she understands what I am telling her -- the same way I understood my mother when she told me. But we still wish for some peace and quiet. Some alone time in the bathroom. A chance to shower without an audience or without little hands pounding on the door.

And yet, somehow, the time passes too quickly and you are left with memories and lingering doubts.... Did I do enough? Did they have a happy childhood? Did I read enough books?

My daughter was surprised when I shared my doubts with her. Just as I was surprised when Mom shared her doubts with me.  I think many of us second-guess our parenting skills. We can offer a false bravado, but there will always be that nagging doubt. The feeling we should have done more, or differently. And in the end we have to be satisfied that whatever our doubts,  we did the best we could.