Mother and Father

     I had said before that I hate blogs where it's nothing but how unsatisfactory the writer's parents are, and the hardships endured while being raised in an upper middle class suburban home. I also said, in my last post, that I was going to be writing about my parents. Some of you may be wondering if I'm going to take the hypocritical dive into complaining about them, and to those people, you don't have to worry. Because in all honesty, I don't have much to complain about.

     That might be surprising to a lot of you. A teenager who doesn't have anything but disdain for his parents? What kind of blog is this? But it's true. I have two of the most supportive and loving parents I could have been given. And while I'm praising them in a way that makes me feel like I should be asking for money any minute now, I am truly grateful for all that they've done for me, one of the major ones being existence.

     When asked about my parents, one of the first words that pop into my head is, oddly enough, “anomaly”. My father was born in Massachusetts, much to his chagrin, and was raised in Northern New Hampshire. My mother, on the other hand, was born and raised in the Southern part of Southern California. If we stay in the Continental US, they really can't get too much farther apart. However, this distance between each other was soon solved by something called the Navy, in which my father was apart of.

     So, there he was, in California, going through a bit of a rough time in his life. The kind of rough time that makes you go on a drinking binge. A friend of my father finally had enough and took him to church on one fate-filled Sunday morning. The morning he met my mom. There she was, a blonde bombshell (yes, it is awkward writing that about your own mother, thanks for asking), in her Sunday Best, who also happened to be a friend of my dad's friend. So, like any good friend, we'll call him Gary, Gary asked if his friend (my father) and himself could come by for dinner. As a good responsible person, my mother had to ask her own mother. The conversation basically went like this:

     “Hey Mom?” My mother asked, finally getting her mom's attention. “Gary has this gross looking guy who smells terrible with him, and wants the both of them to come over for dinner. You don't want that, do you?”

     “Oh, heavens, no!”

     “Thank you.” My mom went back to Gary to tell him the news. “Unfortunately, my Mom says we already have plans today. Bummer.”

     However, over the next few days, my smitten dad cleaned up, sobered up, and tried again. And after what Mom says took several attempts, she finally agreed to go out with him, as futile as it seemed.

     They were married within the year.

     But yes, anomaly is still what I would use to describe them. Let's look at the data.

        Father: Grew up in North North East East.

        Mother: South South West West.

        Father: First met my Mother coming out of a binge, without bathing for days, on a motorcycle.

        Mother: Attended a church that was basically the setting to Footloose.

        Father: Twenty-three years old when meeting my mother.

        Mother: Eighteen when meeting my father.

        Father: Somewhat down to Earth man, who thinks in a somewhat down to Earth fashion.

        Mother: Bat-shit crazy. In a good way, though.

     And the list indeed goes on. However, there is one thing they have in common. My parents' love for music is second only to their love for their children. And you can see it in said children. We are an extremely musical family, and even though only one of us went on to pursue it occupationally, it's still a major part of our lives, as proven by the term this blog is named for.

     They went ahead and had five kids, and raised each one rather successfully. And what I think impresses me the most about how my parents raised us, is that they wanted us all to find what makes each one of us happy, to find our own niche. They didn't raise us to be a clone of the one before, because they understood that we would be different people. And good lord, are we. We each found something radically different from anything someone else found, and somehow, Mom and Dad supported every son and daughter's passion. I'm still not entirely sure how. Rachel is a professional photographer, and Sam is a musician. Those are expensive. Twice.

     I often catch my parents saying something along the lines of “I have no clue where our kids got their brains and talents from, 'cause it sure ain’t from me!”, to which I call bullshit on, in all certainty. My dad is the only person I know who reads the encyclopedia for recreation, and my mom is to this day the most creative person and talented singer I've ever met. So, it's not that far of a stretch to think my fellow siblings and I get a lot of what makes us who we are from our parents: Creative, intelligent, and passionate people, who can think for themselves, and are capable of achieving what they want from life.

     So Mom, if there's anything that I want you to get out of this, it's that you, as a mother, succeeded with flying colors, and that you have not only raised intelligent and creative children, but children who love you immensely, and are grateful for everything you've done. Happy Mother's Day Post.

     Oh, and Dad? Father's Day is coming up. Just a warning.