Dad, how come you never learned to ride a bike?

My parents were decades older than my friends' parents. I was unaware of their own ten year age difference for a long time. When I was growing up, there wasn't much age variety in parents. It was the late fifties, early sixties when men and women were doing pretty much the same thing at the same age. Getting married and having kids. The cool cats didn't start swinging until a few years later.

My mom was near thirty-five and my dad near forty-five when they had me. Five years later, my sister arrived. Of course, more women are doing things their own way now and the men, well they're a whole 'nuther story.

But my parents created their own timeline.

Milton was a NYC Firefighter and the second youngest of my widowed grandma's five children. He was living still at home, supporting his mom. Rosalind was having fun while she looked for my dad. She too lived at home with her mom. Her dad split years ago.

One summer evening in the ballroom of a Catskills hotel, she found him.

The rest is history.

Their history has now become mine. Although they lived to be 80 and 90 respectively, it is me who was too young when they passed, nine days apart leaving me too soon.

At forty-five, the exact age my dad was I was born, I lost both of my parents.

Some of my friends still have theirs. My husband's dad is living in Florida, suffering alone. Although I'm really glad mine aren't enduring the Covid Experience, I have so many questions which will be forever unanswered.