My Parents...

To me, it's hard not to think of my parents on my birthday...after all, if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be celebrating another year older. If you know anything about my past, you know that when I was 27, my parents divorced after 32 years of marriage. The day they delivered the news to my brother and I was hands-down the worst of my life.

Backing up, the night before their announcement, my entire family attended a huge retirement dinner for my father at the Crescent Hotel in downtown Dallas. It was a formal affair, men in tuxedos and women in cocktail dresses, a band, a dance floor, an abundance of food and memorabilia of my father's 25 plus years he served as an actuary at Watson Wyatt Worldwide. My father gave a speech that night, and there was a tone in his words which hinted to a big change about to take place in his life, but at the time we were oblivious to the direction of which he was speaking.

The next day, my brother and I (My sister lived out of town at the time.) both received the phone call asking us to meet them at Ben's apartment that evening. After arriving and sitting down, my father said the 8 words no child ever wants to hear..."Your mother and I have decided to separate." My heart sank, my life literally flashed before my eyes, and I dispersed a few expletives...It felt like the rug that was my life, had been ripped out from underneath me, like all my childhood memories had never really happened, like life as I knew it, was gone. It sounds dramatic, but divorce is dramatic. I could not, and still cannot, recall a time when my parents yelled at each other or were openly disrespectful, so the news was shocking. Children see their parents as a unit, and it was difficult to think of them otherwise. Our once close-knit family would become distant and scattered.

Fast Forward about 4 springs ago...my siblings and I had "heard the rumors" that my parents had been "hanging out" together, but they kept it pretty much a secret from us. Apparently my dad had decided to move his storage building from one place to another and had invited my mother to join him in going through old photos etc. in order to divide them up between the 2 of them. Those moments spent in a hot, humid, dimly lit storage room sparked memories of a life and a family they had created together. When summer came around, my father took the whole family to Key West and asked my mother to come with us. Despite me going through the demise of my own marriage at the time, it was an incredible vacation. We were a family again; we could laugh about the good old days again because they were no longer painful to remember. The final night of the trip, as we all sat in one of the condos together and watched the video of my brother's proposal to Jennifer, my father took a ring out of his pocket, turned towards my mother and asked her to marry him "again" for all of us to see. It still gives me chills to think about that moment. It was amazing, precious and I will never forget being able to witness the love between my mother and father.

They remarried in a small family ceremony on September 29, 2006, and I have never seen them happier. Although their divorce was devastating on the family as well as on themselves, their respect and love for each other now makes each moment of that hardship worthy. I have always considered my parents role models. They taught all of us to believe in ourselves, set our goals high and how to love those around us. They have loved me through the ups and downs, good and bad and have never given up on me. I am so completely blessed...