For my Ma and Pop.. Seeing as how I didn’t post anything for Mom’s Day.
My mother wrote in her wedding journal, “He told me if I lost 50lbs, he’d marry me. I did, and he did!!!”
I can’t remember clearly if I read that excerpt before or after he died, but if it was before, I’m sure he had a talking to.
Honestly, it made me think my dad was a dick back then. Something that had never occurred to me was a possibility. I never knew him when he had delicate features, and a promising future.
As for my mother, it is the only evidence (to me) that she had ever been some sort of dimwitted floozy. All other evidence points to the contrary.
..If no one looks in the direction of her extensive collection of sheep paraphernalia. Though, a craft fair shopping addiction does not an idiot make.
As a child, she tried to get me to start collecting dragons. I have three overpriced, and underwhelming dragons to date. All collected while she was still here.
I still don’t collect much of anything. As a matter of fact, I have too many things as is.
My father.
One of the things my Pop always said to us growing up was this, “If it hurts to go like that.. Don’t go like that.”
It seems to float out from nowhere when I’m caught up in my own malarkey. A subtle reminder not to make things so hard for myself.
When he had his stroke, and we sat silently holding hands in the waiting room of the hospital, he turned to me, face full of sadness..
He squeezed my hand and said, “Poor little twerp.”
His brain was failing him, and he worried for me.
I find myself forgetting more and more of him, as you do over time. But like my mother, I still remember the feel of his skin against my face, and the shape of his hands.
