I seethed with all the rage my fourteen year old self could muster...which didn't amount to much as I was the good sibling. So a very unflattering glare, accompanied by a loud, childish stomping tantrum up the stairs was my rebellion.
Followed by slamming my bedroom door.
There. That would show them.
Those uncaring, non understanding, always telling me what to do-
PARENTS!!
They simply didn't get me. I know they didn't. How could they? There were old and couldn't understand what it was like to be a teenager. Especially if they were going to laugh at me while I was trying to make a statement with my purposeful stomp up the stairs.
I threw myself onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling, clearly experiencing the most horrible of ordeals- A teenager trying to talk with her parents.
Were all parents so tough to communicate with?
They didn't even speak the same language as me.
And they weren't any fun. All they did was work, clean and drive us kids around.
I flipped on my music and ignored the happy family sounds coming from downstairs.
After a while of pouting I was bored but unwilling to leave my room. What to do?
I idly sifted through my special box. Silly things, precious things, just a small collection of my first fourteen years of life. Nothing real special. And then...photos of my very young teenage parents, smiling shyly into the camera, looked up at me.
My Dad wore a blue long sleeve shirt with a seventies styled print on the front. He was barely eighteen and was already taking on the responsibilities of a wife and child. But he smiled.
My Mom was beautiful in her high school photo, wavy blond hair, much like a Charlie's Angel, dressed in a blouse of red, brown, and orange. She had taken her glasses off and her brilliantly blue eyes sparkled.
They had been teenage parents back when society wasn't quite as demanding, as say the fifties, for having to wed just for the baby. But it was still expected and assumed.
My Mom said they didn't marry just because I was coming along though. They married because they were madly in love with each other. I always thought that was cool. Probably the start of my wildly romantic notions.
My fourteen year old self sighed at the photos. They weren't much older than me and suddenly they had found themselves trying to raise a baby without any higher education, or great job prospects.
The idea of it was frightening. I could never imagine being such a young mom. Ever.
I flopped back on my bed, still mad at them but wondering how they did it. How did they raise me while being kids themselves? It must have been so difficult.
Years later, I look back at my young self and my lack of understanding. Without having the experience of being a grown up and having my own children, answering those questions wasn't possible at the time.
How had they done it? Through the rough start, poor paying jobs, crappy apartments, health issues and not much family support, how had they pulled it off?
My answer leads me to love. It started with love and it is what has driven most of their decisions.
They met in high school, surprisingly I live just a mile or two away from it even though I spent my childhood 1100 miles away from where the path of my remembered existence started.
(I don't recall the time before my birth. Although, I would love to. Abu, when she was a toddler would always tell me about the angel house she was waiting in before her birth. Probably just fanciful stories of a small child but I will always wonder...)
Anyway, it was a typing class that changed their life. I'm not sure if they learned how to type in that class or if they were too busy exchanging giggles, blushes, and grins.
But I am completely grateful that they were forced to take that class together.
From there, they were together and some time when my Mom was seventeen I was on my way. Ready or not. With a great amount of courage and stubbornness and with the help of a special teacher my Mom graduated from high school.
I will always feel gratitude towards that teacher, even though I never met her. She was there for my Mom, helping her accomplish something that was important for my Mom to be able to say 'I did it.'
Angels come in all shapes and sizes.
My parents married and from there on out it was full speed into motherhood and unfortunately the eighties. :) Luckily, her taste in music was hard rock not Madonna or Tiffany. Thank you Mom!
Until I became a parent I never realized just how tough it must have been for them. How many hard decisions and difficult times they endured all in the name of love.
Love for each other.
Love for me and then my siblings.
So on Day One of my blessings I find that the path to reclaiming my faith starts with love.
I think it might even be the main ingredient.
I thank my parents for giving me that firm and unshakable foundation. I hope and pray for my readers that they had someone in their own childhoods that gave them that same starting point. If not a parent; perhaps a grandparent, teacher, coach or neighbor.
Call them, if you can and tell them thanks.
I wish my fourteen year self had known just how important and tough her hippie wannabe parents were... if she had, she wouldn't have spent the next year finding trouble. (grin)
