To mom on Father's Day

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

There are thunderstorms here today.  And over here goes Carbuncle... kinda reminding me of my mother,  a bright little light in the midst of a storm. 

So when I first knew what was going on I was 2 years old.  I have seen many pictures of my 2nd birthday party of which it looked like I was quite the hit.  4 families lived near to each other in those days and they all each had their set of children to raise. My mother says that in those days, my father's family showered her with affection.  But as my father struggled to improve his position at a supermarket, eventually rising to the level of buyer, he pined for the days when he went offshore, which he had done before he met my mother.  

And as the saying goes for every beautiful woman, there's a guy that's tired of [doing] her.  

I know, that's no way to talk about my OWN mother.  It was a significant amount of money though compared to the minimum wage he was earning at the market, or so he thought.  And one day I will tell you the story of how he got put out of the market, because like MOST things that pile up on you when it rains... it was probably a SPELL casted by witches. 

Anyways so my dad starts to catch ships again and promises my mother that he will save up enough to start a small market so he can stay home... and she believed him.  Knowing what I know now, it's no wonder that they never got off the ground.  Dark matter is everywhere and everywhere they see how much money people are earning and they spread these secrets to mechanics to doctors to landlords.  It was lucky for them that they didn't know they would never have a decent chance at their dream and so what, because at least my father got what he WANTED right, he got to be lonely offshore with gobs of money and friends and beer, and my mother got... what she got.

Us kids.

Well, in defense of my father at least he didn't fly away when it got too tough like other dads(though there were close calls)  and he did contact the union to garnish or send an allotment of his salary to her monthly so that there was always a set amount sent from his pay.  And unlike other dads that had to suffer sending what they didn't want to send and get nothing for it from their separated ex-wife or something, MY DAD got to come home to a woman that missed him terribly and kids that thought he was GOD on Earth everytime he came home.  

He washed us with dinners in restaurants(McDonald's) and Conan comics he brought home and with records and all sorts of strange gifts that were something just this side of fantastic.  He was a great fan of music and every couple of voyages or so, he came home with a new HUGE radio with buttons galore that we could press to our hearts delight as kids.  

Often though, I would hear my mother crying of what all I could tell was loneliness and would wonder why she was so strict and so mean.  It was offputting.  I would hug her and she would hug us back every chance she got and wouldn't let us go and it seemed that she was starved of affection.  And my father's family didn't help as what they served to do was keep an eye on her and tell tales of tidbits just short of suspicion.  She has relayed some of those tales to me now in her old age and I can tell you that GOSSIP is DEATH to a friendship.  I can only imagine the solitude of living with people that don't exactly like you.  

Wait I don't have to imagine... having friends that don't like you is a (edit: difficult) and though she was incredibly mean to us, I can see now, how difficult it was for her in retrospect.  

So I was tweeting recently with a certain Harvard grad and giving her accolades to her idea of cheering for her mother on Father's Day.  I too, thought of my Mother as she did, as a one-woman parenting dreadnought that somehow got it all done without any help from anyone else.  

But I can't discount my father.  Despite those many years of "questionable" behavior, he never left, he never stopped loving us, and I don't believe he, unlike me, has an irresponsible bone in his body.  But like all of us, like all of his kids, I believe he can enjoy life entirely too much, when he is not around his loved ones. 

So he likes to drink beer, meh...  there are worse things.