[My bipolar head is still squealing, so here’s another Valentine season re-post.]
Red hearts Bow Tie o’ the Day is ecstatic to be chosen to present this picture of Mom and Dad. They were probably 15 or 16 when this photo was snapped, and I’d bet bigly money this is a selfie taken by Dad.
If you ever saw my parents together, you saw something wild with life. They played their humor off each other like a perfectly timed vaudeville comedy team. They took joy in each other’s whims. When they looked at each other from across a room, even in public, you could see absolute brightness in their eyes.
In a time when it wasn’t always socially acceptable for women to work, make important decisions on their own, and speak their minds, Dad thrived on Mom being her spunky self. He encouraged her in her endeavors, and he watched with pride as he saw her conquer thing after thing she attempted.
Once—again, way back before women were people😉—to her friends’ amazement, Mom went to the car dealership in Delta and bought a new car on her own while Dad was in California working with his bees. When she told him, during their nightly phone call, that she had picked out a car and bought it, he had no problem with it. He figured she must have needed it. They trusted each other to make bigly decisions individually, if need be, even when the decision affected the whole family.
Of course, Mom and Dad had their disagreements and bumpy times. Of course, they huffed and puffed at each other, here and there. But it was always obvious Mom and Dad were in a deep, wide, tall, true love.
There are billions of things in the universe I will never know. But I know at least this one truth: I am the daughter of a grand romance.