3 - My parents

There were three rules in my house while growing up. Three rules that always applied and that I still to this day try to live by, and still to this day have to remind myself of:

1 - With freedom comes responsibility.
2 - Two wrongs doesn't make a right.
3 - You are not granted the right to be mean or bad just because someone else might be.

My parents have not always been given the gratitude they deserve.
My father worked three jobs at one point to keep us fed and dry while mom did her best to make bricks without straws.
Yet we never lacked. I never noticed. We had everything we could possibly need and probably lots more than that.

My mom was never cheap with what we had. She has taught me to appreciate a simpler life. A life where buying jam or processed food feels like cheating. I've grown up on home grown, home baked, home cooked treats of all kinds. Did I get honey puffs for breakfast I won, cause it was rare. I look at her now, still pickling her home grown veggies, making marmalade and stuff and I poke fun of her for it. "The war is over mom! It was over in -45..you can stop, food rations are no more. You know there are shelves full of jam at the store right?" But I can only wish that one day I will find the energy to actually obtain her knowledge and feed my future children the same healthy, unprocessed meals and not the kind of junk I now shove into my body.
She read to me a lot. And she sang, and nobody can sing a more beautiful lullaby than my mother, I swear.
She's a nurturer. A stubborn and very...rational one but still. Her ability to instinctively know what people need is something she must have inherited from my grandma. I don't have the same ability. Especially when people need it most I feel like I freak out and get stuck and can't think of a single, sensible thing to do.
I believe those two have always had a sixth sense.. "Aha - my student daughter is starving. I just know it.. though I haven't talked to her in a week.. I better swing by with left overs and two grocery bags!"
If she hadn't, all those countless times, I might have very well starved to death..or frozen..or ya know, pitied myself into oblivion.. cause sometimes all you need is your mom at the door saying "Ok enough. Get up, get dressed and get a fucking handle on your situation." Luckily it has been a long time since that horror struck me..

My dad. Oh my dad is Superman. I used to truly believe that.
I thought there wasn't anything in the world that man didn't know or couldn't do. I used to sit up on his shoulders and look out over the world and feel so completely and utterly safe.
He caught criminals for a living, he was an army ranger, a total badass in my innocent blue eyes.
As I got older I realized that my father was more of a normal human being, an incredibly strong and smart one.. but still, there are things in this world that could actually hurt him other than kryptonite.
So he went from army spec op to the police department to being a politician to becoming a university teacher. As if all those things were just another day at the office. Myself, I need three days of psychological preparation to be able to deal with a grocery shopping trip. So, still.. not far from superman. If I actually put on pants on a day off I feel secretly proud of myself for accomplishing that much. Army ranger? Yeah, come see me at the psych ward early morning of day 2, cause that's where you'd find me.
I have always had the ability to find that soft spot in my superman-dads heart. Did I take advantage of that in my rebellious teen years? Would I have been much of a rebellious teenager if I didn't? Or did he simply let me? I will never know. But he is a big bad ass softie though. He did teach me right from wrong, I might not always have listened, but I knew. He went with whatever whim I was going with. Soccer you say? Here's a spot on the team. (once, ONCE did I try and realized it was just like P.E and fuck that!) Stick horse-horse jumping you say? Ok, let me build you a course. And he sat through many, many of my riding lessons with a deep analysis of my developed abilities in the car ride home. He was that kind of dad. And a strong shoulder to cry on with big arms to hide in when the world just got a little too rough.

I remember one time, when a boy had broken my heart. I don't know if it was my loud sniffles or the even louder Lionel Richie album blasting through the house that tipped him off. But it can't always have been easy being a single dad with a 15yr daughter in the house. He knocked on my door, and I asked him in a very 15yr old way to go away.. He didn't, he knocked again.. And I thought, well if I scream even louder he'll obey me.. But he didn't. He didn't knock again, instead I heard a weird clinking noise. My curiosity got the better of me and I opened the door, eyes red from tears that he pretended not to notice. In his hands he held the biggest friggin bowl of ice cream I have ever seen..and a spoon. Handing it over he said;
"I thought you might like it.. Sometimes it helps a little.."
Ok, how cute was that?

Yeah, my parents might have made their fair share of mistakes..
But hey, I prefer that we don't count here, for my own sake.
They probably seem like pretty ordinary people to others, but they are extraordinary to me.
And tell me, aren't they just two extraordinarily beautiful people?