As I’ve been sitting here doing my morning Facebook musings, I’m thinking about all of the reasons I’m so incredibly grateful to my mom and dad.

That picture in the top middle…  that is Mom and Dad just about a year before they got married…  17 and 21 years old.  December, 1968. They had no REAL idea what was happening next.  Bottom left:   January 1970.  Now they were living together for the first time in their own apartment.  They had no car.  Dad had to hitchhike to the train station every day to get to work.  Mom was in school and working.  Every Friday their cousins would pick them up to grocery shop, and all they got to eat was hotdogs because everything else was too expensive.

Three years later they had me… and two years after that, my brother.  We lived in a small, fourth floor apartment.  Mom only had enough money to pay for the washing machines, so she’d have to haul the clothes upstairs in the baskets and hang them out to dry.

In 1976, six years after they got married, we moved into our first house.  My brother’s room was as small as a walk -in closet.  We used a ping pong table as a dining room table.  Our car had rusted out in the bottom, so there were holes in the floor…

Some of these stories I remember…  some of these stories I’ve been told.

Second house in Illinois: Dad has a newer job, another promotion.  The house is bigger, nicer.  Mom works three days a week and is a full time mom.  She volunteers in the schools on her days off.  She is the room mother and the lunchroom mother, and everything mother.

Third house, New Jersey:  We live in a subdivision with our own lake.  We have two cars now.  Dad has to commute more than an hour to work in Princeton every day.  New job, another promotion.  Mom works more than one job now, but still volunteers at the school in her “free time.”

Fourth house, Texas.  This is a big house.  This is the first house that is custom built.  We have a pool.  We have a game room.  My brother and I each have our own bathroom.  My parents have built this amazing life together basically from scratch…They have been married for 20 years.

…and this is where my THANK YOU comes in…

Although my brother and I were allowed to use cars, my parents claimed that they would NEVER give us a car.  (They did, eventually, my senior year of college.  They gave me a minivan with no air conditioning and failing brakes.   BUT it got me through my last year, and I could use it as a trade in.The car they gave my brother was two years older than mine 🙂  )

When we were in high school, we were EXPECTED to work.  My parents paid for our basic food, clothing, and shelter, but if we wanted anything else… that was on us.

We were expected to have a plan after high school… and that plan did NOT involve living with Mom and Dad.  After graduation, my brother and I did not return.  And it was HARD.  We lived in not-so-nice apartments and houses…  We drove cars that were less than reliable.  We did not have extra money.  We had to work more than one job.  We could not afford to live alone.

…and we have our mom and dad to thank for showing us that is how it’s SUPPOSED to be.

And sometimes my mom and dad fought… and sometimes they were very serious fights about very serious things…  but they worked it out… They showed us how marriage is supposed to be… how you’re supposed to treat each other.

They changed and they grew and they struggled together because that’s how life is supposed to be.

And they showed us how you’re supposed to be in the world.  They took in strangers when they needed a place to stay.  (People and animals alike).  They have open minds and open hearts.

I thank them for their expectations for me.

I thank them for showing me that it’s okay to struggle.

I thank them for letting me see that life and marriage are full of horrible and hard things SOMETIMES… but that it’s worth it ALL of the time.

I thank them for teaching me to be considerate and compassionate.

I thank them for who I am now and where I am in life now because I know I couldn’t have done it without the way that they raised me.

That picture in the bottom center–Dad is 69 Mom is 65.  They’re in house number 5 now.  and have been married for 47 years.   I still learn from them all the time. Heck, just this week I asked my mom to go to a movie, but she couldn’t because it was my parents’ day to volunteer at the food bank.

Thanks for showing me ALWAYS how it’s supposed to be.