At Thanksgiving they came and went, but by some unspoken agreement we avoided the topic of the election altogether. As they left though, I felt sad that I hadn’t said anything. I worried that I had acquiesced to having an irreconcilable difference with my parents, that I was letting a part of my relationship with them go to ruin, like some closed, forgotten room in an old house.

It will help, I think to myself, having my son’s sleep-heavy head poised just below my chin as I talk with them. It will help me keep calm and avoid raising my voice for fear of waking him. As the phone rings I decide I won’t talk except to ask questions. I won’t say I have felt sick, almost grief-stricken ever since the election. I won’t say it was a tragedy, an act of collective nihilism, to elect a leader so unpredictable, so full of lies, who bullies and systematically demeans entire groups of people. I choke it all down — not just for my son’s sake, but also for theirs. I have to understand them. After all, they are the reason this election felt so personal to me in the first place.

* * *

It all began a few years back when my mom, a woman in her late 50s, tried to learn to ride a Razor RipStik. (If you’re not familiar with the Razor RipStik, it’s a kind of skateboard with wheels that swivel so you can drive yourself along without touching the ground by using your back wheel as a propeller.) My mother fell off. She broke her arm and had to wear a cast.

It was at this point that I decided to have a serious conversation with my parents about health insurance. For 20 years or more they had gone without coverage. They were fortunate enough to have few health concerns, so the risk had become a matter of principle for them: Why buy something you don’t want and hope you’ll never use? They saw it as a stand against fear. Worse than a medical emergency would be to allow fear to control their lives.

This was during one of my first years in graduate school, and I lectured my parents using every argument my training could supply. I talked about statistics, policies, medicine, bureaucracy, attempting to wow them into submission with my expertise. But this fell on deaf ears. My parents, you see, are a pair of born challengers. They’re rugged individualists who tend to make their own way in life, working where they want and living where they want (currently in an old elementary school building my dad bought).

When I look at them, I still see my parents, but I also see them haloed with a cloud of inconvenient data: They are nearly senior citizens, and they are at the cusp of entering the high-risk ages for heart disease, cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis (though they are not yet in range for Medicare coverage). In their minds, though, they’re still the same people who went skydiving, parasailing, cross-country biking and canoeing when I was a kid. A few weeks back I mentioned to them that I’m thinking of running a half-marathon this summer. “Sign us up,” they said.

The stakes became higher two Christmases ago. My wife and I drove in late from out of town to meet my family for dinner. When we showed up, half of my dad’s face didn’t seem to work. The right half smiled, frowned, talked like normal. But the left half drooped down motionless, as though it had become unhooked from its internal mechanism. On the same side as the slumped expression there was a big wad of cotton stuck over my dad’s ear.

While we waited for a table, I stared at my father’s now-unfamiliar face as he explained rather nonchalantly that earlier in the year he had been diagnosed with an inner-ear infection. A specialist had recommended immediate surgery. Without insurance the surgery, he was told, would cost $150,000. So he would wait it out, he said. If he could wait long enough — at least a year or more — his infection would no longer be considered a pre-existing condition. Then he would get insurance and have the surgery. Meanwhile, he had completely lost his hearing in the affected ear. And the infection was spreading, leaching into the bone around his brain, paralyzing the nerves responsible for moving his facial muscles.

With a look of pained concern, my wife asked, “Can you hear out of the other ear OK?”

“Huh?” my dad said, the working half of his face twisting into a grin.

“The other ear. Does it work just fine?”

“Huh?”

It took a few more repetitions for us to realize he was putting us on.

Obamacare was a godsend. At least for my apprehensive mind. My parents embraced it out of necessity only, having never supported the law or its namesake. But come Jan. 1, 2014, they signed up. And thanks to a key provision in the law, my dad could not be denied care due to his pre-existing condition. With insurance in place for the first time in decades, my parents hopped in their truck and drove from their home  — they just call it “The School” — in North Dakota to Rochester, Minnesota, home of the world-famous Mayo Clinic. They had been told that, due to a cancellation, my dad could have his procedure done right away.