I am constantly trying to suppress a genetic predisposition.  Not to alcoholism or drug or gambling addiction (thank god).  My grandmother only smoked or drank during bridge parties and my mom quit smoking by simply dumping the rest of the carton of Kents into the trash can and stockpiling boxes of graham crackers for a few weeks. No.  My trouble is with the worry-wart gene.  In my family it runs long and deep on my mother’s side, and I can trace its roots to my grandfather and his two sisters, Myrl and Faye, down through my mother, to me.  There it festers, and while I try to carry on as if I am a normal person, I am not.  Therein is my secret.

In advanced years, my mother has totally succumbed to her genetic map.  Her last visit was full of horror stories, from families winning houses and dying of carbon monoxide poisoning (and where was our alarm?), to the need for colonoscopies (the trick is to drink that stuff fast, and when is your next appointment?), the longevity of our dogs (don’t mixed breeds live longer?), to global warming (won’t Ohio flood?), to stabbing an unwanted finger at a freckle on my wrist (I don’t remember that—get it checked out), and being unable to walk down town with me because I had final grades due the following day (just take me home and do them, and then I can relax).  Nearly every sentence began: I am worried about… It was the worst…. You won’t believe… etc.  She is the human conduit for every issue of Time magazine and as the bar for shocking or alarmist writing is raised in the news media, so rises her anxiety.  I hid Time.

Now, because I profess to be a perceptive person (not brilliant mind you, merely aware), I realize the bizarre impact of this heritage, even as a small child.  When my brother and I visited our two great aunts in Alton, Missouri, we were not allowed to play on the porch because it was determined we might fall off and break an arm.  We were 11 and 7—the porch , maybe three feet high.  When my brother came down with a stomach ache, they both fluttered around uttering dire diagnoses: an appendix (ruptured), influenza (24 hour killer type), spleen (diseased), mosquito bite (meningitis—isn’t that how it started out the Benedict girl?  The one who died?).

My grandfather worried about every “what if” possible: driving (never do it—car accidents), flying (plane crashes—rather drive), storms (a tree will fall on the house), every mole, lump, crack, pain (death is right around the corner, literally), the future (idiot republicans will run this nation into the ground and we’ll all have to migrate to Canada—in the car, of course).  Ironically, no one in my family ever worried about money, which was perfect because our family never had any.  I guess that meant our priorities were straight.

So.  In order to be a thoughtful parent and learn lessons from my elders, I profess not to worry, because I am trying, earnestly, consciously, to suppress that worry gene. I am left mouthing how my children should be able to play and explore the natural world without the guidance and supervision of adults. How yes, I love to fly and see my friends and family, how horrible the state of the nation and the world is—but be part of the solution not the problem and do something about it.  I drive and fly and send out my protest letters.  I refuse to be a helicopter parent. I quell fears when my children become ill or I find an irregular mole or lump where it shouldn’t be.  I have made remaining positive an art form….but all those parenthetical statements above live inside me, trapped by a person who refuses to give them a voice.  But I still feel them, and it is a heroic effort to keep them buried.

I refuse to pass this gene on. And it remains a struggle.  When my eldest, Sarah, talked about going for a run in Belize in a field later found to be writhing with Fer-de-Lance snakes, I smiled—“how exciting.”  When she talked about swimming in a river with alligators resting on the opposite side, I made a joke: “Are you sure you’re not related to Jeff Corwin?”  These are the comments released from my lips.

Yet, every day I am challenged. When my son, David, decided to join Sarah at the Mayan dig site this summer, I called from home to the airport to just remind him to keep his mouth shut when he swam in the lakes and rivers there.  That was all I said.  I suppressed the litany about parasites--creepy things infesting nervous tissue leaving you paralyzed or dead--out of the conversation, pretending the flood of worry wasn’t there.  Oh, but it was.

Unfortunately, my heroic efforts went unnoticed.  “Yeah, I know mom.  Don’t worry. And no peeing in the water either.”

“Don’t worry.”  That was the phrase I struggled so long not to be identified with.

Later, that night, I went on line to find out what the hell could crawl up your penis—and added another horrid fact for the parenthesis.