By Justin Walden

Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin

Sunday, May 8, 2005

I laid on my futon with my stomach twisted in knots, and I was not entirely happy with my visitors.

Grimacing, I managed to thank my parents for coming to visit me. I told them that the bean soup would no doubt help me recover from the nasty flu virus that knocked me on my back just a few days short of my 26th birthday in late January.

But I didn't like it. I couldn't get over the idea that they were there helping me, yet again. A day before, they had taken a drive to Syracuse to bring me home from a hospital.

Twice in two days my parents had taken care of me.

But I had thought that's not how it's supposed to happen, not at 26 at least. I was supposed to take care of myself.

When they helped me work on that homework assignment on the tiny country of Cyprus at age 8, yes it was nice to have had the assistance.

When a baseball knocked me senseless and gave me a nasty goose egg at age 10, yeah it was great to cry on mom's shoulder.

In the countless times I've relied on my parents, especially my mother, to get me through difficult times, it's been well-received.

But as the years have piled up, I've pulled slowly away from my mother.

The drive for independence as a teenager becomes a sense of hardheadedness in one's 20s.

So when the flu sent me to my futon, and when I needed rescuing from the hospital in Syracuse , I was not fully prepared to appreciate it.

It's not that I wasn't grateful, it's just that I didn't want to worry her again.

A friend of mine from college raised a similar point when we first met. He was sent to the hospital, also in his mid-20s, with a growth that he feared would be cancerous.

He almost couldn't bring himself to call home to tell his parents that he was sick.

Sometimes, we kids just don't get it.

We just don't understand that even though the law may formally recognize us as adults, we're still our parents' children.

I had always understood that children are the ultimate responsibility for parents. Yet it dawned on me how the worrying and desire to nurture doesn't stop when we leave home for college.

Today, I would like to thank my mother, my best friend. I'd like to say I think I got the message.

No matter where I am and what I'm doing, mom will always want the best for me. At age 26, at age 36, at age 66.

I'm grateful. I'm humble. And I also feel very loved.

Thanks mom, again.

Walden is a Press & Sun-Bulletin reporter. E-mail him at jwalden@press connects.com.