My recent trip to Atlanta reminded me how fortunate I am to have parents who refrain from using guilt as a coercive tactic. When I went to see them, it wasn’t in response to complaints about my not having been there in ages (although that would have been true–I hadn’t come to Atlanta since the previous summer). My parents eagerly anticipate seeing me, my husband and daughter, but they don’t want us to feel obligated to visit. While we’re with them, they want us to feel like we’re on vacation. They cook our favorite meals and treat us to dinners out. They encourage us to rest, take it easy, or go out and do something fun.
Even during this visit, Mama would say routinely after a meal, “Now, I’ll clean up. You go relax. You have to clean up every night.” Daddy, recovering from surgery, was determined to carry my suitcase up the back stairs. It was hard to persuade my parents to let me lift a finger around the house. Mama finally thought of a few small tasks that involved a ladder. Even then, it was all I could do to keep Daddy from pushing past me and scampering up to the top. Last year, I would have let him, but the dent in his forehead from a fall in the hospital told me I’d better not.
Mama had only one real request, and even then she suggested it with no pressure. She had asked me earlier if I would mind driving them “out to see John.” John is their dentist, and they love him. My parents never dread a dental visit, as many people do. For them, it’s a social occasion with the added benefit of cleaner, better teeth. They look forward to seeing John. They’ve known him since he was sixteen. He was my first boyfriend.
The summer before our junior year, John appeared at a church youth group function with a friend. He was charming, witty and somewhat sophisticated. All the girls in MYF sat up and took notice. I expected he’d soon be cuddling in the church van with one of several girls I remember, perhaps inaccurately and unfairly, as serial boyfriend collectors. Any cute new guy was likely to pair up with one of them. But this boy liked me.
John seemed to think more than most boys his age, and he had varied interests. He played basketball but also read books, had a talent for art, and could talk about ideas without sounding dull or pompous. When I said I hated all 70s rock music, he brought over his Queen albums. I played Night at the Opera and Day at the Races over and over on my cheap stereo, and I still love Queen. I think I saw my first foreign film, Cousin Cousine, with him. He was no highbrow; we also saw Kentucky Fried Movie and The Spy Who Loved Me. We found out Elvis had died when we stopped by Baskin-Robbins after playing tennis at the crumbly old court behind Rock Springs Presbyterian Church. Even back then, John, like the elf in Rudolf, knew he wanted to be a dentist.
We were a couple for only a few months, but the timing was significant. Just before I met John, I’d had a few tense dates with a boy who was, to use a classic crossword puzzle word, a cad. He was dashing and handsome but as shallow as a driveway puddle after a quick summer storm. Thanks to John, I discovered early on that I didn’t need to waste my time with boys who were clearly not right for me. And I learned there was no truth to the adage that good guys have to be boring.
Our reasons for breaking up are hazy now. It probably had something to do with the fact that we were both sixteen and had most of our lives ahead of us. But we remained friends, and we were still in regular contact when John’s father suddenly got a new job that required the family to relocate to Charleston, West Virginia. It was February, in the middle of the school year, with less than two weeks left in the quarter. John moved in with my family so he could finish up schoolwork and take exams. He settled into the upstairs room off the attic. Because he attended a different school than I did, Daddy let John borrow the station wagon, while he took the bus to work. He made John’s lunch every day. I don’t think he really needed clothes, but Daddy bought him Levi’s at Charlie’s Trading Post, and my mother made him a shirt. John never lost his sense of humor even in the midst of his melancholy over the impending move. Mama understood and sympathized, and when John had trouble sleeping, the two of them sat up late together talking.
My parents became John’s patients after the retirement of our long-term family dentist, who was also a good friend. That was years ago, and they have followed John as his practice has moved farther away. Reaching his office now requires a twenty-five mile drive on I-85, an increasingly dicey adventure for my parents. On their last visit, they got lost when Daddy took an earlier exit. This was one of the incidents that prompted my husband to decide we had to set my parents up with a GPS system, as well as the reason Mama asked if I’d mind driving. Friends have wondered why they don’t find a dentist with a nearby practice. The answer is simple. That dentist wouldn’t be John.
My parents and I survived the drive to John’s office. I managed to follow the GPS directions despite Daddy’s persistent efforts to get me to take the earlier exit. Shortly after we arrived, John came out to greet us ebulliently, as if we were long-lost family, even though he was with a patient. He took the time later to sit down and catch up. We laughed about the old days when we were teenagers, as well as the current ones as parents of teens.
John’s effervescence, rooted in empathy and sincerity, is contagious. He’s not one of those hollowly entertaining types that seems like great company until their arrogance becomes apparent. You realize you’re incidental, needed only as a spectator. John has real warmth; his joviality is not merely presentation but extends to those around him. A few minutes with him and your outlook improves. I agree with my parents. It’s worth the drive to see John.
