Peaks and Valleys...

Thursday... a day of highs and lows. My mother's request was that we all be here, and all of us who still dwell on earth are here with her, for her, and because of her. One of us resides in heaven already - my brother Jeff was the trailblazer, He passed on a few years ago. And, my mother is anxious to see him, to hold him, and to love him again. We will miss her as we miss him.

But, the story is not all sadness. The moments of overwhelming love and adoration are breathtaking. My dad, looking at my mom, staring into her eyes, telling her his love for her, his wish that she be pain free and at peace while his own heart breaks. I ask myself about these two people who raised me, gave birth to me.. where did they come from? How did they turn out to be the people they are? How did they find one another?

And that is how this story really begins. My dad was 16, my mother was 14. She was a kid. He was halfway to being a man. They both had a job at the little drugstore on the corner.  My mom worked the counter, my dad counted pills - early training for his career in pharmacology as a sales rep. And then they held hands. My mother and father have always and only ever loved one another... They found their life partner from the start. I am envious; I feel cheated in some ways. But I am so incredibly proud to know these two adults who call themselves my parents. I am proud to be their daughter. I am blessed.

My mother taught my dad to smoke cigarettes.. of course this was long before anyone told anyone else about the dangers of inhaling smoke. And she taught him to drive. I heard how he sideswiped a number of cars, taking off side mirrors along the way. They never told anyone, but the next lesson was in a more open space! When they graduated high school - or rather, after my mother did, they married and my dad entered the army. There's a story of my mom, pregnant with my brother, needing to see my dad for some reason. She and her friend decided to go find him - while he was out on a training maneuver. The commander spoke to my father the next day.. about his wife and exercising some control over her. HA! He has never had control over my mother. She got things done, had her way, and loved him unconditionally as well. They were a perfect match, a perfect compliment to one another... Less than a year later, another child on the way - that would have been me. And then 3 more. I have no idea how they survived five of us.. I had days with two that almost made me bonkers. My mother, however, was a mom. It was her calling. It was what she was meant to do.. raise us, love us, and laugh with us.

And so, this will become not only a story of end days but a story of beginnings..