National Parents Day 2014

Yesterday [7/27/14] was National Parent's Day. I thought I'd take a minute to get a little personal && tell you about my parents...

My mother had cancer when she was a child.  It was the 60s/70s and they did a lot of experimental treatment with her.  One of which was removing her reproductive organs && spleen.  She married my father at age 15 because they believed she wouldn't live long enough to be married as an adult.  Well she went into remission and they were married for 24 years & 11 months when she passed away too young at age 39 [from complications due to a sinus infection].  

[myyy grandmother & mom]

[my daddy with his parents]

Since my mother couldn't have children of her own, I was adopted.  My parents were always honest with me about this, and we celebrated the day they brought me home from the hospital every year as "Gotcha Day".  I was my mother's world, and she was mine.  

My parents were/are musicians.  I grew up surrounded by music and was taught early on to appreciate it.  I give my parents full credit for my love of all genres of music.  I used to say that I'd rather go blind than deaf because I can't imagine a life without music [now that I have vision problems, I'm not so sure how I feel about that anymore aha].  I live, eat, sleep, && breathe music.  This I learned from them.

I was raised to love everyone.  I was raised to be tolerant and non judgmental.  I was taught to help others.  I can honestly say I had the best childhood anyone could ever ask for.  I was raised by not only my parents, but by their band mates, my aunts & uncles, my 2 grandmothers, and my grandpa.  I had a village of amazing people and not once did I feel unloved.  Now obvi we didn't all live together, aha!  However, my dad's parents lived next door to us my entire life and at one point my other grandmother lived on the same block as well.  It was AWESOME!

I developed my love of baseball from my momma.  We lived in Kansas and she taught me how to be a true Yankee fan from afar!  Aha!  Every Yankee game I attend, a part of me is sad because she's not with me to experience it.  Then I smile and know that she is happy that I'm having the time of my life with "our" team.

[my mother && my son as a baby]

I love both of my parents more than anything && I am so lucky to have had the ones I have.  I miss my mother every single minute of EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I can only hope that I have grown & continue to grow into half the woman she was.  If any human had super powers it was her.  She juggled so much in her life & did it with a smile.  She was truly Super Woman.  My dad is the strongest & most intellectual person I know.  He can literally do ANYTHING he tries and excels at it.

My daddy taught me that even though I'm a girl, I can do anything.  He taught me how to change a tire on the car.  He taught me how to use power tools, and how to fix things around the house.  He made sure that I knew how to do things on my own, and if I can't, he is always there to help.  He's a wonderful man, and he's mine.  I'm a huge daddy's girl.  I still climb up in his lap when I'm feeling blue.  Which is quite a funny thing to see I'm sure since I'm NOT a small person! Ahah!

I think it's important to always tell the people in the life how much they mean to you, and today I'm shouting it from the rooftops! <333

**pictures in this post are pictures OF pictures lol, sorry for the bad quality**