Father's Day

"It is much easier to become a father than to be one."

Father's day is a couple days away. I'm going to tell you a story, this story is my story and if it helps one person, then it is a good story.

I hated my father growing up. I don't remember a lot about my childhood, bits and pieces is all. Maybe that was God's way of getting me through it.

Both my mom and dad were alcoholics. I don't know the true definition of an alcoholic, so I am using this term loosely. We never went without 'things', I never felt unloved. Being loved by our parents was never the issue, the issue was on every Friday & Saturday night they drank too much and things usually went awry. I remember going to the San Diego Zoo, Harlem Globetrotters, Gone with the Wind, drive-ins, I remembered once we dressed in our pajamas and mama made the back of the station wagon into a bed. We went camping a lot, those I remember well. We went to the mountains in Northern California & in Washington. We appeared to be a normal family.

One time, while camping, my dad hit my mom, which he did a lot, but this time we left him there at the camp site. We, as in my mom, two sisters & our dog, late at night started walking home. I'm not sure how far it was, I remember at one point hiding in a ditch so our dad wouldn't find us. We got a ride in a truck with a man who took us home. Our dad wouldn't speak to us girls for the longest time it seemed after that. Fighting happened just about every weekend. My mom got beat up a lot.

I never brought many people home on weekends to spend the night, you never knew what would happen. I never went to a prom, a formal... I hated him.

During one fight, mama was knocked over the coffee table in the living room, breaking several things, one being her ribs. It wasn't her ribs, it was cancer. After a years fight, she died, she was 46. Ironically, I started this post on the day my mom passed away, June 10, 1980.

She had been in a hospital bed in the living room for for a while until the day she wanted to go to the hospital. When the ambulance came and took her to the hospital, we all knew she wouldn't come home again. I sat in the bathroom floor crying, asking why? I prayed He take my dad. I prayed He take me.

Here, is where things began to change, not just in losing our Mom, but actually gaining our Dad. He quit drinking. He did all the little things our mom used to do. Chocolate Easter bunnies, a single rose for Valentine's day. The list continues. In God's bigger plan, he had given us two parents to love. I wish things had been different, but they weren't, had my mom lived, we may never had known our dad. Good or bad it was what it was.

From 1980 to 2002 he became both of my parents. He taught me to cook, to stand up for what I believed in , finances, loving your family through hell and back. I talked with him everyday. I miss him everyday.

I called him the night before he passed. I was cooking dinner, I was given that spiritual nudge and I called. He wasn't able to come to the phone so his wife took the phone to him. When he got to the phone I told him "thank you." He asked me for what, I asked if he remembered me always wishing him a happy Mother's Day, and every time I did you would say, "I ain't your mama?" You were, you became both mom and dad.

I wanted to make sure he knew how much I appreciated everything he had done and that I loved, loved, loved him! This was the last conversation we had.. He died the next morning at 5:00 am.

My job on this earth is not to judge, but to forgive, forgive I did. I had two wonderful parents. Two people with their own faults, but they loved us. They being the parents they were made me the person I am today. I think they did okay. So, this Father's Day, remember your dad. Whatever faults he may have, he too, is only human.

Matthew 7:1-2

1 Do not judge, or you will be judged. 2 For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.…

Joining the Navy

Me & daddy

unnamed

Vallejo, CA