By Alexander Wheeler
Features Editor
A Yahoo Answers user recently posted in a seeded comment stream that “(b)eing an only child is like not having cable. Your family saves money, but it sucks when it’s raining outside and you have nothing to do.”
As an only child myself, this comment resonated deeply with me. I’d never really seen the definition of an only child spelled out in such a way that it took me back to my childhood, when I would be home alone on a school snow day with nothing to do but be by myself while my parents went to work.
I didn’t learn anything from my older siblings, nor did I teach my younger ones anything – I didn’t have any.
When I meet new people, they are a little shocked when they discover that I’m an only child. I don’t act like a “typical” one, whatever that means. Stereotypically, only children are seen as introverted and spoiled people who typically only look out for number one, because, well, that is all they’ve ever known. While that may be the case with some only children, it isn’t the case with all of them.
It wasn’t until the other night that I started to feel the weight of the implications that come from being an only child.
My dad called me at around 2:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. He works on a heavily-guarded and secure government facility and has no access to his cell phone; security ensures that he leaves it in his car before he goes into the plant to work from seven to four.
My dad called me from his cell phone and it didn’t strike me as weird until I remembered that he couldn’t access his phone from his desk – he wasn’t at work on a typical work day for him, and he was trying to get ahold of me for some reason.
Now, I didn’t pick the phone up right away, I was busy. I hit ignore, like I typically do.
I didn’t remember to look back at my phone until five, and that’s when I realized something must be wrong. I called my dad back and got nothing.
I called my mom.
My dad was in the hospital with severe chest pains and had been the entire day. Luckily, the pain was being caused by his failing gallbladder which the hospital was able to take care of within a few hours.
I drove up to the hospital to see my parents and my dad was asleep when I got there. My mother hugged me when I walked into the room and we walked down to the hospital’s cafeteria to grab some Jello for my dad – he loves hospital Jello, for some reason.
On our way back to my dad’s room, my mother told me that she had some papers for me to sign. The papers in question were some health forms that made me a healthcare proxy for both of my parents. What this means is that, if the time comes, and neither of my parents are able to make a conscious decision about their state of being (i.e. being in a vegetative state) I am the one who tells the doctors to pull the plug.
In the moment when it comes time to pull the plug on my mother or my father, there will be no one but myself to make this life-ending decision. Sure, I may be married or have a partner by the time this happens, but it still comes down to just me.
Both of my parents come from households where they were the oldest of four, and after countless years of observing the relationships they keep with their siblings, I still don’t know how to confidently define the meaning of kinship.
Doing the math, this means that I have at least six aunts or uncles, and if they all are married, add another six aunts or uncles to that list. I by no means come from a small family – at least not from a small immediate family. Regardless, none of these people will be there with me to ultimately make the decision that I just signed up to make.
Now, I’m not upset with my parents for not having another child so I wouldn’t be left completely alone in the world once they eventually pass away. I’m not upset and I’m not angry at other people who have siblings to help them through the hard times of watching a parent pass away. I’m just saying that this is something that has just happened to me and I have to start coming to terms with it.
There will come a day where I plan my parents’ funerals. Well, at least one, unless they pass away at the same exact moment, with no one to help me make decisions but myself.
I will rent a funeral home, set up calling hours, greet other grieving members of the community who knew my parents, and then, after some time, purchase a casket or an urn and then watch them get lowered into the earth. Alone.
The memory of my parents as parents will solely be mine and the memory is something that I could never share with anyone else – they were my only parents, and I their only child.
Whatever it is that they own: cars, house, property, will then go to me, as I am the only next of kin. I’ll likely live in a different town than my parents at the time of their passing. Hopefully not too far away, but I won’t be next door.
I’ll have to go through a house that used to be my home: my parents’ home. And I’ll have three choices: get rid of the property, move into it, or empty it out.
Sure, I won’t have to worry about fighting over any of their belongings with siblings as we all cope with the loss of our parents, but I won’t have anyone to tell me what to do with any of it. Nothing in their home will hold the importance it does to me to anyone else.
My dad’s model train sets. My first pair of sneakers that my mother always used to show girls I would bring to the house. Do I keep them or do I get rid of them? If the memories locked away in that place are only mine now, who is say what I can do with them?
Every choice I make from there on will be made by me and me alone. No more running decisions by my mother or father. No brother or sister to call to help channel my parents’ wisdom to shine some light on my current situation.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is that no matter what kind of household you come from, and no matter what your relationship to the siblings you may have, be thankful. They’ll help keep the memory of your parents alive and hopefully help usher in the chapter of your life when your parents won’t be there.
Meanwhile, I’ll be sitting under that chair my mother put under the low-hanging tree in our front lawn, right next to my dad’s shop with her dog she left behind lying next to me and my dad’s favorite bottle of whiskey to remind me that they never really left. Not really, anyway.
