Parents

They say.....you never really appreciate anything until it is gone.

How sadly true.

I have the best parents. I could not have asked for parents to have loved me more, or supported me more, or celebrated my accomplishments more, or loved my children more, or provided for me better, or demanded more of me. They were the best parents.

Our family came with its own particular brand of dysfunction. You show me a family that isnt dysfunctional in one way or another and I will show you a family of performers and liars. We didnt always like each other. Sometimes not much...sometimes not at all. We ALWAYS loved each other.

My mother and father's marriage and their relationship has been a shining example. A guidebook of how to stay married and stay in love. They faught, but they loved. They REALLY loved.

As professionals my parents were the best teachers in the school. More kids liked them than liked me. I spent a bit of junior high jealous because I was convinced that the kids liked my Mom better than they liked me. I mean....pfffft...I didnt do splits on the chalk tray, what did I have going for me? I tried...they all wanted my help on the physical science lab reports. They thought, because I was an A student in that class, that Mom helped me with them. I finally gave in, let them copy my lab report...unfortunately...I got a D on that one. Mom never helped me. In fact, I dont think she mentioned the word 'science' in the house for the whole year she was my teacher. Other kids got help from their parents but my Mother...so full of integrity...was not going to compromise her integrity to cross the line from teacher to mother. If she was my science teacher, she was not going to be my mom the science helper. Jealousy is a useless feeling, but I was right they did like her better. She was so full of life...full of energy....full of passion for science...passion for kids...passion for teaching. Everything I am as a teacher I owe to watching her. I definitely dont teach science, but I am full of life, and I share her pasion for kids and teaching and only hope I can keep up with the energy! When I get sad, missing her...it just makes me thrust out my chin and be even more determined that I will be her legacy. That some of the best parts of her live on in me. That she is still touching lives through me. That gives me peace.

My Dad.....also just one of those people that inspires. Not like mom....completely different. It is his eyes. They are windows to his soul. You look into Dad's eyes and you can read him....and Whoa to the person who looks in those eyes and sees disappointment. It is like a gut wrenching blow. My students say my eyes do that. That I have...what they call...'the look'. They say that the idea of getting 'the look' can bring them to tears. I wouldnt have any idea what they meant if I hadnt gotten that same 'look' from Dad more times than I can mention. Strangers would talk to Mom, but Dad is like a dear old friend. You dont chatter with him, but when your heart is heavy or you need advice or counsel he is the most peaceful calm, guiding force there is in the universe. Even before he was 'talking for God' he was this way. It is just part of his character. And Intelligent....my fondest memories of childhood were walks in the woods and mountains identifying the different plants, and the types of rocks. I was always looking for information from my Daddy and soaking it up like a sponge.

I was a difficult child. I just am not sure I could have handled one like me. Bless both my parents for surviving it. Precocious and Determined, Independent.... Stubborn. I was reading my baby book last week....and I couldnt even count the number of times Mom's initial reporting was so excited about me being independent about this or that...but later she came back and crossed out independent and wrote STUBBORN and OPINIONATED. I had to be leashed to my bed because i wouldnt stay in it. That should have been a clue right there. I dont imagine many kids need to be leashed and harnessed into their bed at night to keep them..not only in bed, but out of the brook outside, or the neighbors house. They figured out early that they had to keep my mind engaged...and they did. Song after song, book after book...memorization games and mneumonics and all sorts of mental puzzle activities to keep my mind focused on something positive. Then I discovered theatre. I imagine I became like a foreign species living in their house at this point. I sang musicals morning noon and night, I danced in flashdance ripped sweatshirts and lord knows what all else that I know now in retrospect must have looked utterly ridiculous and embarassed them to no end...but at the time I just thought I was being magnificently bohemian. I know that I was a cross for them to bear. They loved me though, and just kept pushing and prodding. Never steering me away from my passions. Both of them told me over and over and over that all they wanted is for me to be happy. For a long time..I didnt believe that. I thought they wanted me to be a happy conformist and I was not subscribing in any way shape or form. They didnt want me to conform, they just didnt ...well...they didnt...hmmm...I was going to say they didnt understand how I thought...but..well...I dont think anybody does! They kept encouraging me to be the best I could be and to strive for happiness.

Even when I married so young. Lord...I will never forget Rich and I making our 'big announcemen t' that we were going to live together and Mom asking questions and us trying to convince her that we were fully committed to one another, we just didnt want to be conventional. She looked at both of us and said "You arent committed unless you commit. If you dont get married you are just telling one another that you arent worth committing to" I suspect....she thought we would reconsider living together. Instead..we left the room and I said to Rich...."lets get married then, in August"....he said "ok" and we went back into the room to tell mom. Her mouth dropped to the floor and she had nothing else to say. She also didnt help much with the planning of the wedding. I think I flummoxed her again. I think she thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I think she worried that I was going down the hard road she had travelled by marrying young. Well..it was the hard road, but it was the perfect road for me. I think she admired my Rich a lot...she knew EXACTLY what he had to live with by living with and loving and staying with a nut like me. Regardless of her opinion, she and Dad paid for whatever i wanted in a wedding...they didnt argue or try to talk me out of it. I think they may have prayed a lot that I would change my mind, but they discovered that I was with my life partner. The right one. The man who would love me and who I could love the way they had always loved one another.

I miss my Mother. I miss her so much. Little things arent the same......sharing my good news, sharing the worries, just talking to her about my girls...she always knew what to say to help me have perspective and not 'lose it' with them. When I bought the smallest jeans I have fit into in 25 years my first thought was " i need to call mom!" ...then the sadness when I realized that I wouldnt ever again have her to share my joys and sorrows. I miss our weekly calls..sometimes long..sometimes short...but always the touch stone moment of my life where I felt like I was talking to someone who had no expectations of me but to just BE ME. I know if I miss her this much...my poor Dad must feel it so acutely that I dont know how he breathes. I dont know how to talk to him about it. I dont know how to bring her up or to fill the gap for him. I dont have her easy way about me. I am more like him. Both of us needing more to be needed than to open up and tell somebody we need them. Both of us going silent in our sadness rather than talking it out. I wish I could talk to my Dad the way I talked to Mom. I love him so much and I want so much to just make him smile a bit. Dana will be better for him. Busy Dana will keep him occupied and adventuring and laughing. Dana is, in so many ways, like my Mom.

ok...now I have cried enough and it is time to head to the beach!