Unmade Bed

I once was grounded for three days for not making up my bed. I guess I’d been told to do it, the week or month or year before. The fact that I couldn’t remember to do it indicated how low a priority my parents’ rules were to me. I think that was my stepfather’s reasoning, anyway, as he shouted, “FROM NOW ON YOU WILL MAKE UP YOUR BED EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE!”

Well, news for you, Gary: I’ve been married, oh, roughly 2550 days and I have not made my bed every single one of them. Even though my husband likes a neat bed, and I like making my husband happy – regardless, I won’t make my bed if I don’t want to.

Back in the day, I went along with you on lots of things, mostly without active resistance. I don’t know what kind of daughter you wanted me to be – more spiritual? more sweet-tempered? more logical and calculating? Whatever it was, I wasn’t. Even now: I’ve held to the faith that was your lifeblood and is now mine. But I don’t know if you’d think I’m really holding to it, because I don’t do things exactly the way you said they should be done. And really, I don’t care what you think. Sometimes I drive myself crazy not caring what you think.

I didn’t say goodbye when you left, even though I knew you were leaving. You left, and I said good riddance. For a long time – a couple of years – your absence was a relief, like a toothache that has stopped hurting. The years passed, and I married, and I had children, and – most significantly – I grew up. Half-remembered conversations with you, vivid memories of fights with you, suddenly made more sense as I saw things from an adult’s point of view. You shouldn’t have shouted so much, you know.

You still don’t have a headstone. At first Mom couldn’t afford one, and later... well, I think Mom has her own vivid memories to deal with. You’re buried right beside my father, who does have a headstone. That’s not very fair for you, I suppose. You always had it hard, marrying a widow whose husband died young, inheriting a household of unruly children. Even after ten years, our conversations of you are bittersweet, and nobody talks about you at great length. As for me, who knew you from a very young age, there is much I’d like to say and apologize for – and be apologized to. Thanks to the faith we both held to, I can hope to see you hereafter, and finally put to rest my restless memories.

And, actually, I do sometimes make up my bed, just because I want to.