As I grow older I realize that I am a wonderful combination of the best aspects of both my mom and dad. It sounds incredibly cheezy to say, but everything I am today is because of my parents.
I'll start with my dad, who is is a much quieter, much more bookish kind of guy. From what I gather, he was not the most popular guy at school, in either high school or college, and didn't have any girlfriends until he met my mom. He is a bit of a homebody, who has lived almost all of his 62 years in the town he grew up in. Exceptions include his 4 years at college in Virginia, a brief stint with the Marine Corps in Parris Island and a few months in 2008-09 when he lived and worked in Chicago. He came from a more privileged background, but that is not to say that he had an easy childhood or did not work for the life he has provided my family with today. My mom always tells me the story about when my dad and all his friends at work got their first big bonus. All his friends went out and bought fancy sports cars or took exotic vacations. My dad invested it. All of it. Now that is not saying he does not like to indulge every once in a while, but I think my serious frugality is definitely something that I get from him.
My dad and I share the same enthusiasm for a lot of things. We are both history nuts who have been getting non-fiction books for every birthday and Christmas for the past ten years. We are the only two history buffs in the family and could talk for hours about Winston Churchill and our favorite historical figures. We are both sports fanatics with an unusual enthusiasm for sports mascots (although I should say that my two older brothers also share this trait). We refer to ourselves as "mascotologists" and could probably write a book together on the college mascots - the good, the bad, the most original, the most historically accurate, or regionally appropriate. Just this week my dad sent me an email titled "another Mascotology [with a capital 'M' of course] disaster" about the changing of Johnny Reb at Ole Miss to a Black Bear in the name of political correctness. This brings me to another thing my father and I have in common, which is politics. Much like our mutual love of history, we are probably the most two politically savvy in the family. We like to talk politics and he cuts out and sends me articles in the mail he thinks I might enjoy. We both like to sit in front of the TV on Sunday morning and watch Face the Nation and Meet the Press and then call each other and discuss what we thought about the guests and what was discussed. We're both also the two most athletically minded in the family. I am so proud that my dad at 62 still makes an effort to go to the gym every day and makes efforts to stretch out his back and keep himself fit. He does perfect push-ups I'm sure many of my most athletically-minded friends would even be envious of.
To those that don't know him well he is a pretty serious guy. Getting him to smile in a picture is an almost impossible task, which is ridiculous because he smiles all the time at home with his family. He really is an incredibly goofy guy with a very silly and random sense of humor (which is probably where I get it from). Most people outside of our immediate family do not get to see that silly side unfortunately. This is my favorite picture of my father ever, taken about eight years ago. I surprised him as he was walking in the door from work one winter evening.
If you notice it is pretty dark outside as my dad is arriving home from work, which brings me to my last point about my father. He is the most selfless and hard-working person I know. My father has worked his entire life to provide and provide for my brothers and sister and I with little regard for his own comfort or needs. Whenever someone compliments me on my work ethic and determination to complete a task I know that I owe so much of that to my dad and the example he set for me.
My mother is so different from my father that I often wish I could be a fly on the wall to see how exactly it was they got together. My mother grew up in the smallest of small-town Indiana. She came from a very modest background, including an early childhood before she was adopted by my grandparents that I know little about. All I know is that her life before my grandparents was not very pleasant and she did not have mich. I know there were many Christmases where the only gifts she had were from Toys for Tots, a charity that has always held a very special place in her heart and consequently in mine. She left home soon after college to be a "stewardess" and eventually found herself in the big city of New York where she would soon meet my dad. If my dad was shy, quiet, and bookish, my mom was the exact opposite. Her stories and her sibling's and friend's stories from high school, college, and the years after describe an outgoing and gregarious personality that I can easily still see in my mother today. While I would hardly consider myself a social butterfly, over the past 6-7 years or so I have started to recognize more of that part of my mother in myself. She is an unbelievably kind, generous, and outgoing woman. She's the kind of person who saw a man walking home from the train station last night in the pouring rain without an umbrella and pulled over to give him a ride home. When I'm standing in line at Kroger and I strike up a conversation with the woman in line behind me or the cashier who is ringing me up, I think to myself that it is something my mother would do. And that's something I am proud of. I'm not the kind of person who will go to a party where I know no one and make a million friends, but I make an effort to get know people. I genuinely think being my mother's daughter is part of what makes me the teacher that I am who genuinely cares about getting to know her students, who they are, and where they come from.
I am truly lucky and so proud to say my mother is also my best friend. We have our moments, but she is the first person I want to call when something huge happens in my life - good or bad. When I go home to NY for the holidays one of my favorite things to do is lay around in my pajamas with my mother and do crosswords and watch Animal Planet and HGTV. She is not the kind of mom that I share EVERYTHING with, but she is definitely a confidante and a person I turn to as much as I turn to my college pals. She doesn't always tell me what I want to hear, but she is unconditionally supportive of the decisions I make. She understands that if I mess up and fall I am perfectly capable of picking myself back up on my own, but she is still an important part of my life and a person I rely on a great deal to help dust myself back off again.
Wow, I did not anticipate this entry being quite this long! I guess it is just a testimony to how awesome my parents are. I am so grateful and proud to call them my parents and cannot imagine my life without them both.
