Reprieve

My parents arrived the other day, and immediately things seem better.

I don't have tonsillitis -- I'm on my 9th day of antibiotics, and have had no improvement in my throat, so it's a virus of some sort. They've tested me for mono, but since I've had it before, it's unlikely that I have it again. So the doc thinks it's just a really crappy virus that's left me with night fevers and swollen lymph nodes and fatigue and aches and general feel-shittiness.

I am getting a little better every day, slowly but surely. My fever cycles are getting fewer and further between, and my sinuses aren't quite as swollen and irritated as they were, and there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

I've said it before, though, and I'll say it again. Sometimes I honestly don't know how I would function without my parents. My mother has done all of the laundry, taken over the grocery shopping and the cooking and the diaper changes. My dad takes Zeke with him to run errands and gives Josie bottles and holds her and talks to her. They don't let me get up to do anything. They don't let me pay for anything. They don't let me worry about anything.

"Sit! Sit! I'll do it!" one of them invariably yells when I start to get up to take care of something.

I thank them and thank them and tell them how much I appreciate their help.

"It's what parents do," they respond.

But I know alot of people who could use the kind of help I'm getting, and I know that alot of parents don't do what my parents do. Not that they don't love their children as much or anything like that. But they just don't think it's their job to be as involved, financially or otherwise, in the lives of their children. Or if they do offer assistance, it comes with lots and lots of strings.

I mean, for God's sake, all I have to do is look at Jason's family. His parents love him, but even when his mother came to visit, I could barely get her to engage with Zeke at all.

I know how lucky I am.

And I hope that as my children get older, I imbue them with the sense of comfort - of knowing that someone has your back - that I live with every day. That would be the greatest gift I could give them.