Mother’s Day. Wow.
If that doesn’t fuck up some women, I don’t know what will.
My own mother, she
was a goddamn stark-raving, strong-woman cursing kind of saint. She didn’t
play. You ask anybody, they’re all still scared of Doris and she’s been dead
for almost eight years.
She always looked
good. She had great legs and she damn well knew it. She was all of 115 pounds
and maybe 5 foot 2 on a very good day. Then there was my dad of course. They
must’ve met when she was like 15. Love at first gonad or something. They met,
they married, they procreated. They fought. They loved. They taught us stuff
and then they fought again. Their engagement photos stare down at me as I type
now.
Honestly, if you
asked any of my cousins, they’d all be a little bit afraid of both of them.
Imagine what their children feel. A bit of awe and a bit of fear that maybe
they’ll come down from whatever world Jesus allowed them to enter and still
kick all of our asses.
Imagine how life is
when both of your parents could take on Chuck Norris, or nowadays the Rock, from
the great beyond and you’re still asking questions. Life can be a little bit
scary and probably not what most people would call normal.
But we weren’t most
people.
I look at my
siblings now and they are stronger people than just about anyone I know. How?
Because we were taught that you just keep moving forward. No matter what your
life is like. You just keep going.
Neither of my
parents were educated. Both were barely
high school students, much less graduates, and yet they knew more than anyone
else I know now. They were what we’d call today “street smart.” Hell yes they
were. They had no choice.
The best gift they
gave us all was their example. They managed somehow to have the four of us kids
and to show us how it’s done. How you raise a child with a bike and some
aluminum foil. How you dance with your wife and spin her so hard she sprains a
wrist. How you correct a situation by raising your voice. How you let someone
know without words that you love them.
I’m going to be 54
in September. I miss my mother every day. Don’t even get me started on my dad. And
I mean every day. No one will tell you
this. You will be beyond middle age, or before middle age or after middle age,
and your mom and probably your dad will die. And you will spend the rest of
your life talking to them when they’re gone.. That’s just the way it is. God
love ya.
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