The Parentals in my life

Today's I'm thankful for is my parents, like many people in todays society I have more than just a mom and dad. So here's their stories:

I guess you could say I'm from a broken home but I've never really seen it that way. The fact that my parents weren't together when I was growing up truly never bothered me. Call me strange, it wouldn't be the first time.
But the thing is they split before I was born and I have not 1 single memory of them as a couple so maybe that makes it different for me than all the other kids that watched their parents go from married to divorced. Mine were never married and like I said had split up before I joined the world. I didn't see any less of my dad because of this so maybe that's another reason it didn't bother me.

When I was 2 my dad met and about a year later married Cathy. I like to think I helped him rope her in. He use to take me with him to visit her at the shoe store she managed and I was so dang cute she couldn't help but fall in love with both of us. I was the flower girl in their wedding. They eventually went on to have my two beautiful sisters but Cathy always treated me like I was one of her own.

My mom also went on to marry her first husband when I was only about 2. I wasn't at that wedding and I wish she hadn't been either. That husband doesn't need to be talked about at this time because I'm not at all thankful for him. She divorced him when I was 8 and settled down with Mike a.k.a Poppy when I was 9 or 10. They never married but they stayed together until I was about 18. He's the one I'll be talking about here him I'm thankful for.

My dad was great, there are so many more things I want to say about him but really that sums him up. He was fun to be around, he loved to laugh, he had a very strange sense of humor, he could be raunchy, he loved women, he loved cars, he loved computers, he was so smart sometimes it made me feel kind of dumb (he never did that on purpose) he cussed like a sailor, he had a short fuse but was never violent, he loved his kids. My dad left this world way to early and I miss him it's been 13 long years, but just typing these words makes it all feel like yesterday. But no matter how bad the loss continues to hurt I will always be thankful he was my dad, that I had him for those all to short 17 years and knew he loved me. I will always be thankful for the life he gave me, for the things he taught me, for the family I have because of him.

I'm thankful for my step mom Cathy who is a step only in name because she has been there since I was 2 years old,. Because she is the mother of my two amazing sisters and best friends. Because no matter how shitty I was as a teen she still continued to love me and believe in me, because she never turned her back on me. Because now that I have kids she continues to love me and be a wonderful Nana to my babies.

I'm thankful for my crazy ass mom for so many reasons. Because obviously she chose life, yay I'm here. Because even though she didn't always make the right choices she tried to do right by me, because she loved me and no matter what happened I knew that. Because when my daughter was born she tried even harder to make up for her past mistakes. Because she chose my dad to procreate with and that was a pretty damn good choice or at least I think so. Because she chose to keep me rather than hand me over to her parents to raise. Because she has brought some of the most important people in my life into it. She has made plenty of mistakes but at the end of the day I've forgiven and moved on from the things she's done that have hurt me, because she never did any of it intentionally or out of malice they were just that mistakes. Besides I love her and I'm thankful for all the good in her enough to move past the bad that's not who she is, it's just some stupid shit she's done. Haven't we all?

Mike a.k.a Poppy. Of all the parentals in my life I may be most thankful for poppy. Not because I love him best, but because of what he's done for me and because everyday that he's still here is a blessing. Poppy is a diabetic that without the proper guidance doesn't always take the best care of himself. I worry about him constantly. When I say I'm thankful for what he's done for me what I mean is this. My dad died when I was 17 after a very short battle with cancer. I was devastated and I think there's a good chance that had I been left alone I may have sunk into a spiraling pit of depression and done god knows what to myself or with my life. I was a mess, I didn't eat for shit, barely slept, quit talking to friends, didn't want to leave the house except for work. I lost a bunch of weight and when your 5'1 and only weigh 110 losing 5 pounds is bad I lost more. Mike was there for me, he understood we didn't talk a lot but when we did he got it. No one else around me had lost a parent but he had at a much younger age but still it was like we were kindred. I just needed someone to lean on for awhile and though my mom tried to be there I couldn't lean on her I was kind of mad at her for being so alive and healthy with all the dumb shit she had done to her body over the years when my dad was gone and didn't deserve to be. Don't get me wrong I didn't want her dead I just didn't want him dead either. I was sad, and angry and messed up and she would get mad at me because I couldn't pull myself out of the funk I was in and it pissed me off that she just couldn't get it, but poppy he got it and he never got mad at me he understood if I was down that sometimes I just needed a hug or to be left alone. He learned or just knew how to read me, he always knew what I needed and knew what to say and when to say it. So for getting me through some of the darkest days of my life, and being there ever since for some of the happiest like giving me away on my wedding day, and coming to the hospital to see my babies when they were born and continuing to love me and treat me like his own long after him and my moms relationship ended I'll forever and always be thankful for poppy.

There is also Tracy who is more of a friend than a parental she and poppy were married for almost 10 years. They got together after him and my mom split up. I still lived with him at the time and where most women would have had problems with that Trace took it in stride and we became fast friends. She never treated me as anything less than his daughter and I love her for that. She could have royally screwed up our relationship had she wanted to but she's a wonderful person and she saw a family and didn't want anything more than to be apart of it. And for the years they were together that's exactly what we were. Now even though they are divorced Tracy is still very much a part of my life. I may not see her as often as I'd like but I love her and am thankful for her just the same.Because I know if I need her she'll always be there.

So those are my parents in a crazy little nutshell. I love all of them with all of my heart and wouldn't change any of them for the world. The only change I would make if I could cross my arms and pop my pony tail like genie is that my dad would have never gotten sick and would still be here. But as for the rest I'm thankful everyday for these wonderful people in my life because without them I wouldn't be the Becky I am today.