My parents came to visit last weekend. It was one of the strangest visits yet.
Allow me to begin by saying I love my parents, as trying and turbulent as our relationship can be.
But my parents are kind of unusual.
My dad, a 6-foot-tall broad-shouldered man in his late 60s, presents the ideal image of a good ol’ country boy: self-sufficient, good morals and not very talkative.
My mom — a short Thai woman who smiles a lot and always speaks two notches too loud — has lived in the United States for more than two decades, but she still has an Asian accent and a view of American life mostly based on cable television.
They arrived around lunchtime Friday afternoon and we spent the next hour unpacking gifts: three types of leafy greens from my mom’s garden, homemade venison jerky, fresh pecans gathered in the orchard, and a small fortune of firewood that only cost my dad the time it took to cut it.
It’s about the norm.
After unloading the truck and eating lunch, we headed to The Haven Animal Shelter to look at puppies. We lost Rascal, the golden retriever my dad gave me when I was in kindergarten, in October last year. My dad and I were hoping my mom would fall in love with a litter of Labrador puppies and agree to adopt two of them.
She decided to think about it, especially since the puppies weren’t old enough to adopt yet.
So, we headed out for some shopping — hooray for free groceries — before going home to fix dinner.
It was relatively uneventful. My dad talked about some wild pigs that were causing problems in the area and my mom told my boyfriend and I about what she’d decided to plant in her garden this year.
They decided to call it a night around 10 p.m., much later than their normal bedtime, and planned to get up around 5:30 a.m. My dad wanted to arrive home with enough daylight left to bring hay to the cows.
Considering it was Friday night and a friend invited my boyfriend and I to a keg party at his place, it seemed natural for us to go out. My parents, only recently aware of how much we drink and attempting to be open-minded, told us to have a good time and went to bed.
My boyfriend and I arrived back home around 4:30 a.m.
Sometime in the middle of brushing our teeth and putting on pajamas, the guest room door creaked open. There were my parents, fully dressed and ready to go, with their bags in hand.
“Couldn’t sleep,” my mom said. “Need to get home to the cows,” my dad added.
A quick round of hugs and “love you,” a folded wad of cash pressed into my hand to help with monthly bills, and they were out the door.
It was almost as if my parents were upset with our behavior or felt awkward about the situation enough to want to leave in a hurry. But, because I understand them in a way only family can, I knew that wasn’t the case. They’re just like that.
…but it was still pretty odd.
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