My amazing parents…it was their 27th Anniversary on Friday, August 27th. Life has taken so much from my parents, but they don’t ever make anyone pay for refills of love.
Here’s an excerpt I wrote in July for the book I’m currently writing.
“My parents…oh, you really should see them – they are such a pair. They complement each other with their differences, like a salt and pepper shaker.
Karen Maria is a tall, blissfully loud German woman, with bushy golden hair, laughing blue eyes, and a rosy complexion. Her college nickname was “Karen The Opinionated.” Philip Joseph is a short, quiet Filipino man with a military buzzcut, and eyebrows which speak more loudly than he ever would. They met in the ROTC program at the University of Pennsylvania – he was her drill sergeant. They were very good friends, even before romance was a question, and now they are best friends. After college, my father would become a captain in the U.S. Marines; my mother was a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy, and the sole navigator for mammoth aircraft carriers, in an era of the Navy when there were generally around five women in a vessel of thousands, and no digital instruments which make a navigator’s job possible for anyone but the most perfectionistic, precise people. My parents sent each other love letters from sea to shining sea, they rode motorcycles, they ran marathons, she painted and sketched him, and when the news broke that I was inbound, they shifted to life as public school teachers, they sold their motorcycles, and they settled into a house in New Jersey, which I would soon slather in drawings, toys, and memories.
They’ve been through a lot. My mother will not ever be the same as she was before we lost her mother, less than five years ago, before I began college. My father will never be the same as he was before we lost both of his parents to COVID-19. I love them, so I try to fathom their pain, and to understand that who I am now will change when I lose them, and to always remember that I must be there for them and appreciate them while I can.”
God, thank you for four years with someone who loves me and whom I love. I pray, may I be so blessed as to enjoy 27 and many more.
