B, BA, BOM: Day Three

The choices my parents made (or didn't).

My parents were children of THE DEPRESSION. My father, the youngest of five, was raised by his widowed mother in a small northern Michigan town. As with many small towns in the early 20th century, you were born in, raised in, and died in your current socio-economic position. What your father did, you did. My father did not want to be a miner in the coal or iron mines, like his uncles. He dreamed of greater opportunities and expansion in the greater world. And, along came WWII. He graduated two years early from high school, lied about his age to enter the Army Air Corps. After the war, he lived with one of his older sisters, but didn’t really like being a lumberjack; so back to the Air Force he went. It provided him with travel, adventure, and an ever changing landscape. He eventually ended up in Albuquerque NM

My mother was born in Santa Barbara, CA. My grandmother was a cook for a variety of Hollywood stars and my grandfather was a truck driver. They divorced when my mother was about 12 and her brother was 11. My grandmother and mother operated a boarding house for a while. She never told me why she moved, but in her senior year of high school, she went to live with an aunt of my grandmother in Texas. She traveled all over the western United States, working as a stenographer and secretary. Somewhere along the way, she, too, moved to Albuquerque.

They met; they married and remained together for thirty years, despite their seemingly divergent personalities. From what I understand, at least twice my mother considered leaving my father. She did not. There were also a couple of times, he thought of leaving her. He did not.

There were many things neither of them did, because they stayed with each other. No regrets, just choices. They agreed that their children could do anything they set their minds to and in the best way they could, encourage that exploration.

Had my mother chosen to leave my father, I would not have my fantastic “little” brother. I wouldn’t have moved all around the United States, ending up near Sacramento, where I met my husband. There are lots of things I did get, most of them good.

Yea, I am grateful for the choices they made (or didn’t make).