30 Things in 30 Days (#21: My Parents)

Day 21: Describe Your Relationship with Your Parents

Oy. This is the first word that comes to mind at this prompt. Oy, because... well, I have indescribable relationships with both of my parents - just in very different ways. But, again, I'm challenging myself to answer these 30 prompts in 30 days, so I'm going to soldier on and write about the two people who brought me into this world.

I am the daughter of the most amazing woman. My mother, as far back as I can remember, was my everything. My relationship with her has always been special. It's the relationship I think most moms and daughters want with each other: loving, kind, supportive, nurturing, open, trusting, friendly. . .

My mommy was my hero growing up, and she still is. I only wanted to be with Mom when I was a little girl, and sometimes, it's the only place I still want to be. She was a stay-at-home mom when I was very little. We had fun together doing silly things like dancing around to (Mickey) Mousercize and making up funny dances in the car, and she had the most creative "punishments" when we misbehaved - making us stand "nose-to-nose/toes-to-toes," until our disagreements ended in laughter, or making us wash windows - one of us on the inside, one on the outside - again, so we'd end up goofing off and forgetting why we were annoyed with each other. When I was four, at the same time she was battling breast cancer, my dad divorced my mom. I had no idea what Mom was going through physically or emotionally. How could I at that age? I was naturally oblivious while Mom was suffering. Some of that is age, but most of it is that Mom was so good at always protecting us and keeping a stable environment so we didn't feel the stress of it (at least I didn't... Brock being older may have a different perspective). Throughout my school age years, Mom was always there supporting us, even if she was bone-tired and trying to manage her own career and household. She helped with homework, prepared home-cooked meals (except for Thursdays; those were pizza nights!), bathed us, read with us, played with us, and my favorite, cuddled with us. Those were always my favorite nights - when Mom would stop all the busy-ness and just sit holding us. Oh, how I loved just the four of us cuddling on the couch together right before bedtime. But I digress... :) Mom was always easy to talk to. She listened to my poems and short stories I'd write, she listened to me complain about my teachers, she set rules and boundaries that protected us and our friends, and she didn't care whether we liked it or not. I don't really remember being embarrassed by my mom - I remember thinking she was pretty awesome. As an early teenager, I was disgusted by the things some of my junior high peers were doing, and I would choose to be home a lot of the time. She was my haven, my safe place, and apparently, she was to a lot of other people, too. Mom was so close with her students, and with our friends. Our friends would confide in mom or run to her when they had to take a break from their own parents, one of her students once spent the night at our house after losing her own mother, and my friends were able to goof off and be silly with my mom. And, as I got older, she's been my sounding board and best friend.

At this point in my life, I am well aware of how lucky I am to have this beautiful person in my life. It's not just that she beat cancer twice. It's not just that she handled being a single parent for most of my childhood with great grace. It's not just that she always knows just what to say or how to handle herself with style and poise. She truly is a remarkable friend. Our relationship keeps me going, keeps me strong and resilient. We talk almost daily - always have. We're there for each other any hour of any day.  I know I'm her "baby," and she will always try to protect me and nurture me the way a mother always does - but I love that she confides in me, that she trusts me, that she cares about my opinions or advice. It makes me feel like I am worthy of her friendship, that she accepts me, that this is a two-way street and we are equally important to each other. I am who I am, I am the mother I am, I am the friend I am because of her.

**

I am also the daughter of a father, a father who is puzzling and perplexing and mysterious sometimes. My relationship with my dad is more complex and difficult to describe publicly. The easiest place to start is at the beginning. My very first memory of him is not even really of him, it's of waiting for him. I remember staring at the back door to the garage, waiting for the knob to turn to signify that my daddy would be walking in through that door any second. It never did. It's a perfect analogy for how my relationship has been most of my life with him - always waiting for him. I love my dad - very much. I love him so much that it hurts. He was rarely around when I was a young child. He just worked a lot. He was building his medical practice, and he was on-call a lot, and he was working really hard. I know that, and I knew it then. I never felt like he didn't love me; he just wasn't there much of the time - at least not in my memories before my parents divorced. Once they divorced, my memory gets a lot more clear. We were with Dad every other weekend and on Wednesday nights for dinner only (didn't spend the night). I liked my time with dad (once I got used to being away from my mom), but even on his weekends, we always had babysitters: Lisa, Lisa's mom "Granny," Wendy, Carolyn, Angie. We were often left with these women while Dad had to go deliver a baby at the hospital. I don't remember minding much, except when movies would get interrupted and we'd have to leave the theater because some lady was in labor. I usually didn't mind sitting at the hospital waiting for Dad at the nurses station (I was usually smelling the Sharpies and Expo markers...ha!), and sometimes it was fun to "make rounds" with him.

The rules were different at Dad's house than at Mom's - and I kind of liked the perks of it as a kid: fast food all the time, staying up really late, watching cable TV (which Mom didn't get until I was grown), cussing, just being able to do whatever we wanted. Dad remarried when I was 8. Sally had two children from a previous marriage who were only 4 and 2 years older than I was. Dad and Sally had 3 children together a short time after they got married: Sage, Trey, and Kindle. I loved watching them grow up, and I loved being with them. They were so cute and fun, and there was never a dull moment - even if Dad was away or had to do paperwork all night. This time in my life was rather smooth, and we made a lot of fun memories during the 18 years that Dad and Sally were married: fun trips, a family cruise, lots of Thanksgivings and Christmases and Hanukkahs and birthdays and New Years', lots of letters sent to me at camp with pictures of the little kids getting so big, many long drives to Sunday School, lots of us trying to talk Dad into letting us skip Hebrew school, going up to his office playing on the typewriter, lots of time in the pool....

These years were pretty calm. Mom and Dad were always working together as best they could to organize and discuss things and events for us. Planning Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, figuring out when we'd get cars, planning college attendance - you know, all the stuff parents have to discuss as their kids get older. It wasn't always pleasant, but I took great pride in how my parents could always be in the same room with each other and keep the peace. They were friendly to each other most of those years. I remember Dad being there for Mom when Grandma died, and I remember watching them hold hands at Brock's Bar Mitzvah. They congratulated each other when Caden was born or when we graduated high school and college. They were always a team in my eyes, even if we weren't the nuclear family everyone else seemed to have. I never, ever considered myself from a "broken home" just because my parents were divorced.

But, years passed, and things happened. For the privacy of others, I will skip the details of their divorce, but Dad and Sally's marriage ended pretty dramatically. Right when Mom and Sally were actually getting be "friends" and things were so "normal" again, Dad left Sally. My relationship with him hasn't been the same since. I found out a lot of stuff that just shook me, and while Dad was trying to be honest about it all, he just kept digging newer, deeper holes. The events that happened in the years immediately after Dad's second divorce just kept bringing more and more drama. And, I've had talk after talk and family meeting after family meeting with him - and he just doesn't seem to "get" what his kids have always needed from him. We need him. . . not his money, not his excuses, not his apologies, not his gifts or approval or, above all, his conditions. The events and the comments and the explanations - they all start to run together for me, I'm not even sure what or how or where it all went so downhill, but it did.

At this point, my dad and I have a "casual" relationship. I literally just looked up the definition of "casual" to be sure that's the word I want here. It means "happening by chance; without definite or serious intention; careless or offhand; passing; seeming or tending to be indifferent to what is happening; apathetic; unconcerned; irregular; occasional." Yep, that fits. I don't want it this way. It's not how it should be, at least not in my mind. But, I just can't devote any more energy or attention to fixing it. I have tried and tried. I don't want to give up, but I'm kind of there. I'd love for my kids to know my dad better, to feel that he knows them. If that happens, I'd be thrilled, but I'm not holding my breath anymore. I'm not going to sit and wait any longer - waiting for that damn doorknob to turn telling me that "Daddy's finally home!" He ain't comin', and if he is, he ain't stayin'. I used to cry and get so hurt by this, but I've mourned it enough already. I will always love and care for my dad very much. I don't regret my decisions I've made, and I don't think there's anything I could do better or different. My siblings and I all deal with the events and emotions in the past 8-9 years differently, and we are all very supportive and empathic to whatever we each need to do in order to be healthy.

That's what my dad would want for me anyway: to be healthy. And I am. And I have both of my parents to thank for that. They were equally responsible for helping me become the person I am today, showing me how to act and how not to act, how to think and how not to think. I'm grateful that I had these two as parents growing up and that they are still here and a part of my life. They weren't a great pair, we see that clearly now. They didn't and don't always agree. But, they both love me so much, and I love them both more than they'll ever know.

*Past posts in this series can be found here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16, Day 17, Day 18, Day 19, Day 20