It was actually pleasant. Truly pleasant. Whenever my parents and I are in what is a vacation setting, we have always fought. Well, it's more like they say something that I deeply resent, and I tell them as such, and shit goes downhill from there.
But that never happened in the four days I visited them. Not once. Truly, seriously, there was not one time where we fought. I have no idea how that happened, but I have to say that if I were younger, I would have responded to on of their offers of bonhomie by raising a time in the past where they did me wrong, and then shit would've gone downhill from there.
I never had that opportunity ... and if I did get what would have been an "opportunity," well, maybe I wouldn't have taken advantage of that. Because I was treated extremely well by my parents while I was there, from the time they picked me up from McCarran to the time they dropped me off at Reid. (Funny story that: The Las Vegas International Airport was renamed while I was in Vegas. Apparently the guy for whom the airport was named, longtime Nevada Senator Pat McCarran, was a rank bigot and anti-Semite. Because of the killing of George Floyd and the worldwide protests stemming from it, the Clark County Commission, after previous attempts over the years failed, finally voted to rename it after Nevada Senator and longtime Majority Leader Harry Reid in February 2021. The vote was unanimous, by the way. Two weeks after it was officially renamed, Sen. Reid passed away.)
My parents treated me like a guest, not as a member of the family. They served me dinner and lunch and paid for breakfast. More shockingly, they offered to give me their car to use as I wanted, and they recommended places I could go to have fun and gamble. And they let me go by myself. I even offered to do things with them because, really, I wanted to spend some time with them. But they were good. They were living the retired life, so they were just puddling around their condominium while I was at the sportsbook. I don't think they would have just let me go on my own if I were younger. But I was sure I wouldn't have been quite on my own as I was while I was out there.
But more than that, I remember, was the way they spoke to me. They were ... nice. Not cloyingly nice, but they wanted to talk about what was going on and where I wanted to go. No "oh, you shouldn't go there, that's not safe," no blindsides to past grievances, nothing. It was beyond refreshing. It was ... it warmed my heart. I don't think I ever felt such ... love from my parents than I did those four days. It has always been judgement and disappointment from them. (And it didn't help that they might know that I brought the minivan in for some much-needed repairs, but I'll deal with the fallout when I have to.) This relaxed attitude may have been due to not being in Minnesota, or not needing to work anymore. But this is the first time in my life that they have treated me like they loved me just for being their son, without conditions.
Was that just for those four days? Will I miss that feeling?
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