Monday, January 26, 2009

Bittersweet Weeks

Lots of stuff going on since my last post. I think the kids have already grown up and moved onto college these last few weeks. Seriously though we've been beset enough car troubles to last us the rest of the year, although considering how old they are, I don't think the odds favor us there. That being said, we've gotten great value out of them, the Vibe alone has almost 150k on it and our van has about 96k, so we are lucky to be here with them. We'll keep babying them and hopefully get another 100k out of each. Well, maybe not the van, it has other problems we are ignoring because they cost more to fix than it's worth. At least we've got a hobby though!

Last week was pretty bittersweet for me. My mother's birthday was Saturday, and it was the first one since she passed away. I'm still not sure I would consider myself as having completely gotten through her dying the day before Thanksgiving on the terms we were on (I wasn't speaking to her) and despite my misgivings I do miss her, if for nothing else than I rooted for her to turn things around and enjoy her life.

The weekend before was also the first birthday for my step dad Lou since he passed away last year too. I miss him a lot and I don't mind saying that my life is just a little less brighter without his cackling laugh and horribly fantastic sense of humor. He shaped so much of my outlook and personality in my teen years that I can't imagine myself without him. I love him and I miss him.

Relations with my real father have been distant and tenuous over the last ten years, and I could probably count the number of times we talked on two hands. It took me years to really appreciate how important it is not to burn bridges in life, and despite whatever feelings of anger or hurt I had, I always stopped short of doing that with him. Well on Wednesday he called me out of the blue and we talked for over 3 hours!

It was a great conversation and he said he didn't like how things were between us and that he wanted to work with me to be a part of my life. It was simply wonderful to hear. You don't get calls like that very often in your life, so it made my day. With everything else, that really helped me get through the two birthdays and I don't think I would have handled myself nearly as well without that phone call and turn of events.

2 comments:

Brant W. Fowler said...

I can't imagine what you're dealing with, bro, but you know I'm here.

As for your dad, yeah, you don't get those kinds of calls very often. I'm glad to hear you guys are working things out.

Jason Berek-Lewis said...

I can only echo Brant's comments. Fixing things between me and my Dad was tough work, emotionally. Even close to 10 years on since we started talking again things do flare up from time to time. Let me kniw if you need anything...