IBOL I am your father

I am doing a link up with more than cheese and beer. Our key word is father this week.

"IBOL I am your father" 

I love that I found this picture of me. I have no idea why my mom thought it would be a good idea to hand me over the Darth freaking Vader, but whatever. 

I wish I had a great story to tell about my father. In all honesty it is a long drawn out tale of me spending every other weekend sitting on my mom's front porch hoping that he would pick me up and actually decide to be a part of my life. It rarely happened. 

It sucked. A lot. 

I didn't see much of him. That was ok. I actually came to enjoy that he wasn't around. 

My mom was amazing enough that I barely realized he wasn't there. She was my best friend. She always had this magic about her. Like she had special mom powers that she tapped into because of all the bullshit she had to deal with in her life or something. 

Now that I am a parent I am not sure how she did it. I do good most days to get my kids fed and homework done before bed. She always had something fun to do after dinner like new color pages or a craft of some sort. She would cut out all the coloring contest stuff from the newspaper and bring it home some that I could enter. It was fantastic. On the weekends we were always involved in the walk to end juvenile diabetes and the walk for life and any other walk she could get us entered in. It was so much fun! She was always about being active and healthy. 

Then in the summer of 1999 she was a pedestrian hit by a car. It nearly killed her. She survived, but it was like it had broken her spirit or something. She struggled with depression her whole life, but after the accident it was worse. She had juvenile diabetes and so what should have been a speedy recovery turned into years of pain. She never walked again. It wasn't long before everything started shutting down. She held on long enough to see her first grandson born! I wish I could find the picture of her holding him...

Her favorite holiday was Halloween!! 

Actually I think her favorite thing was holidays in general!! 

My dad was in and out my whole life. When she was hit by the car he was more consistently around. When she passed away in 2006 I couldn't believe that he got to live when she had to die. It seems so unfair that such a wonderful vibrant spirit couldn't out live such a nasty one. 

He is still around these days. Now he has major health issues and expects me to take care of him. I struggle with this constantly. I try to look past the bull shit I went through because of him and include him in things for my kids sake. I want them to be able to draw their own conclusions. He won't be around forever...

It trips me up that I still struggle with this bull shit at 32 years old. Some people just should not be allowed to reproduce.