When I was 13 me and my mother and 2 men broke into Great Falls National Park at 2 am. She snuck off with one of the guys who happened to be my brothers English Teachers son who she was “dating” and left me in the woods in the dark with a guy she met at the bar that night, who was a man from England who belonged to the Queen’s Royal Airforce. I don’t remember his name… I just remember in my mother’s drunken stupor after this whole escapade she gave him my grandfather’s flag from his coffin and I was mad.
When I was 14 she set me up with a 30 year old Egyptian man whom she also met at the bar where she worked and sent me off on one of the most horrendous and uncomfortable evenings of my life.
And when I was 15 she would come home and wake me up after her shift at the bar and drag me out of bed to drive over to her boyfriend’s home to see if there was another girls car in his driveway. She’d drop me off a block or so from his home and then I would walk down the street in the dark and spy to see if lights were on and if there was a car and if there was I got a full description and would report back and then we would go home and she would cry and I would console her till she passed out and then I would go to school.
And when I was 16 she moved in with her boyfriend and I lived in the apartment alone and paid for groceries with the money I made at Subway.
My life is filled with crazy stories like that, my mother was absolutely insane and drank like a fish most of her life and her parenting skills were terrible… but she would have been the first one to admit that.
But here is the funny thing…. Last Friday was the ten year anniversary of her death…. And I miss her…
Yeah she was insane
And yeah she was a mess
And yeah she drove me crazy and made me want to scream
But when she died it meant both of my parents were gone…. And I would never get to sit on a couch and be someones daughter to anyone again…. And even if they are jerks … you still miss that.
Both my parents missed the mark in a myriad of ways…. I guess we all do somehow when it comes to parenting…
But you know when I look at my son the sun rises and sets on him even when he is being an idiot
And my parents looked at me the same way even when I was being an idiot…
There was not much consistency when it came to either of them. I flew back and forth from Virginia to Idaho most of my life….
And when I was in either of their homes for too long I drove them nuts because I never really just accepted most of the stuff they told me…
I figured if I had to parent them then I should get a say in how I got parented too
They yelled a lot …. Both of them
And they did things that were insane for a parent to do…. Both of them
But there were moments of greatness…. In both of them
And they weren’t overt gestures…. I mean my mom did lots of outlandish things to spoil me but I don’t miss the shopping trips
I miss the way I would walk into her house and plop on her couch and set down Brayden and let him roam and just become a daughter again.
I miss the way she would hang onto every word of every story I told her
And how you could see the wheels turning in her brain when I came to her with a problem because she was hell bent on figuring out what I should do about it
I miss making her laugh and I missed the way she would talk to me like I was a child….
Strangely I miss that from both of my parents…. The way they would lecture me when they thought they knew what was best…. It used to annoy me and it isn’t so much of the words and what they said but it was nice to have someone in the world who was so concerned about me and my wellbeing that they would passionately lecture me on my behaviors and choices…. Now the only people that can do that are outsiders who do not have a vested interest in me the way a parent does and siblings who are all younger and it makes me roll my eyes when they do.
I miss the way my dad would clear a path to my door at night in my messy messy room just in case
And the way he would tell me not to take a back road home from work
And how he would lock the door and jump when he woke up if any of us approached him
I miss the way he would sit attentively hanging on every word that we said just delighted at anything we did
I cringe sharing this because I am certain there are many who will want to console me with the standard “God is your Father” whole shebang…because they think feeling a void means I am somehow distant from him…and don’t realize that I actually see the beauty of God in this very feeling of emptiness…
Because It makes me realize that even in the most flawed human there is a love that transcends failure.
My parents both sucked in a lot of ways….
But there were moments when I realized that the sun rose and set on me to them too and they loved me the best way they could.
I could spend my life thinking about the horrible things and sometimes they creep up and I take a day to yell and scream at the air hoping they hear my frustrations…
But even if the moments were few it was really nice being a daughter to someone and I miss that. I miss feeling the way that feels and I realize that regardless of how close I am to anyone ever again I will never get that experience.
It’s a gift
It can’t be manufactured…. Its forged through reckless and uneducated encounters day in and day out.
And when I see people who are distant with parents because they are idiots… a part of me understands because I was there too….
But a part of me wants them to just breach that uncomfortable divide and just stick with the relationship even if it sucks because if in 365 days you only get 30 minutes of them being present and looking at you with the look only a parent gives…. That is the moment that you think about when they are gone….and that is the moment you can’t ever get back
You are ordinary to so many people in the world but even to the most idiotic of parents you are extraordinary…. And possibly the only taste of a miracle they ever know… and when you get to taste that with them…. It feeds a part of you that is screaming…. “you are amazing”…. Because you are and no one knows it better than those two people.
She was a jerk…. My dad was a jerk…. And to Brayden I will be a jerk…. We are all pretty much jerks at one time or another…
But I was loved as a daughter….if even for little teeny moments and I miss that… a lot and hope somehow they know that….
A decade doesn’t make that ache get any less…. But it does make me more grateful.
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