Day 9…A letter to my parents

A letter to my parents

This is a difficult letter to write. Mom, you are here to read it. Dad, you don’t get to hear this but I sure wish you could. If what I have been raised to believe is true, that spirits live on, then maybe you are aware of the things I have said to your stone. You know, the things I wish I had said when you were alive.

I have no complaints. Dad, you would laugh at that and say “oh good” but hear me out. A lot of people my age complain about their parents. They say they wish they had gotten more of this, less of that, etc. This comes in many forms; they wish they had more money, more TV’s, more vacations. They wish they had less curfews, rules, siblings, after-school activities. The list goes on. And this gives a foundation for blame. Did you know that I grew up lower -middle class? Well I did. And I didn’t know it and I didn’t care. It wasn’t until I had another friend’s house, dinner, Television or car to compare it to that I even gave it a thought. Those are just things. All I know is that I never needed anything. If I was to compare it to what my children had you would think that I was poor growing up. In reality I was just fine.

Things don’t validate the childhood, the “adult you” validates the childhood.

Dad, you came from a hard scrabble background. You were poor. Plastic on the windows and dirt floors poor. You learned early on, unlike your siblings, that hard work was the means to self-improvement and your only way out. Everything you had you worked hard for and you cared for those things and made them last. From you I learned so many things that I carry with pride; to work hard and ask no one for anything, to always remember where you came from, be yourself if people don’t like you it’s their problem, that things always work out. You were a dedicated father and you did everything you could to give me a better childhood than yours.

Mom, you survived a near-fatal childhood disease. Your life was saved by an experimental medication regimen. Your mother was a very proper woman with a too-high regard for appearances and a fleeting sense of humor. Your father a properly grounded hard-working but fun-loving WW2 veteran with a huge heart. Your little brother tragically died at the age of 4. Your mother had a tragic series of miscarriages. You became their whole world. Your mother was overbearing. You feared to do the same to me. I always thought you had high expectations of me to pick myself and dust myself off when I was hurt, I now know that you didn’t want to smother and shelter me like your mother did. Your light-hearted approach to life always kept me grounded. I could talk to you about anything and you were the perfect comic sidekick to Dad’s straight man. Your laugh is still infectious, you are sometimes silly. But you are tough, your ability to bounce back from anything has inspired me.

You were a great team. Your loyalty to each other was unlike any I had seen. I saw the way you looked at each other and I wish that I had experienced a relationship as loving. It still breaks my heart how disappointed Dad was on your 49^th anniversary, he was very sick and predicted (correctly) that he would not get to dance with her on the 50^th. He cried that day.

I learned so much from both of you and I credit you for giving me something that I see lacking in today’s world. Values. Thank you for being everything that I value in life; honest, caring, and genuine. Let there be no doubt, you did a fine job.

Your loving son