Getting to know my parents

I have really enjoyed the phase I’m living with my parents as an adult. I am so blessed to be friends with both of them. We can spend an hour talking, okay my dad listens more than he gets to talk, and not run out of things to say. My mom and I sit out on her porch each morning that I am at her home for a visit and we drink coffee and chat. Our topics always vary about as widely as possible. We tend to touch on all that matters to us over the course of the morning, which sometimes leaks into afternoon. We sit in antique yellow chairs that we refinished ourselves a few years back. We made a huge mess and may have ruined my dad’s sander in the process. He never mentioned it or the haphazard approach we took to our project. But the chairs are our place. We built it and we visit as often as possible.

This last fall I was able to spend uninterrupted time with my dad. Which I really don’t ever remember having. We played great computer games, we laughed and I felt our hearts find each other in a new way. It was relaxed and easy. We spoke each other’s language. Since this time all of our conversations have been easier, lighter and deeper. I have thanked God for this more times than I can count. It’s a blessing in which I am deeply in awe.

I love my parents not just as family but as friends. But even in all of this talking I don’t really know them outside of our relationship as father/mother/daughter. The person part of them that came before me. The person part of them that exists when I’m not on their couch or in a yellow chair. That is why I am so thankful that they both started blogging this year. I have learned deep, treasured things about these people that I adore. I feel that I have found this trunk of photos and 8mm film reels that I can wander through at my leisure as many times as I wish.

I know that I will never know them as well as I hope. But as a response, I have tried to  let my kids know the woman that my friends know. The sassy, sometimes (okay… often) inappropriately humored , feisty woman that loves them more than my own life. I want them to know the flawed and broken woman that pursues God with a desperate awareness of my own failings and sin. I want them to see that I adore their father; that I love being a mama; that I can be crushed and broken apart by pain but God is faithful to heal me. I don’t want to hide them from what may be ugly because sometimes that is the bulk of who I am that day. And I would rather have them close and run the risk of being a bad example than step back and hope the facade holds. I am in awe of all of the lessons that parents teach children all along their life. I am inspired by my parents and hope that I can give gifts of a similar nature throughout the lifetime with my children.