7 - Blu M: My Two Parents

My two lovely parents, cool in their own ways, odd in others, the (literal) foundation of my life. Without my two parents, I wouldn’t be alive. Of course, they created me, blah blah blah, I am here today. When I look back to compare them, I see so much and yet so little at the same time.

For starters, my mom and dad both shared an incredibly strong love of music. In fact, my dads passion for music was what caught my mom‘s attention. She had seen him dancing with so much joy, and with my mom being a serious dancer too, she was impressed. Mom tells me that he danced a bit roughly, and because of his 6’4 stature, he flopped around everywhere like a bending tree. And yet, she was still drawn to that.

My parents also shared the love of food, lovely San Francisco, and simple but cute, talking to each other. They loved so much about each other, my mom loving my dads long (really long) hair, his height, his voice, a lot. My dad loved her conversations, her passion for anything music, and her resilience. Yes these are different things they enjoyed, but they all fall in the same category of each other.

Of course, with similarities comes differences, and I can count a few. If you were a stranger to them, you can see many right off the bat. My dad was tall, white, and had a thick southern accent, while my mom is much shorter, brown, Asian, and talks like a local Californian. My dad worked as a glazier for many prominent buildings in San Francisco, stemming from the City Hall to the Salesforce building, while my mom works as an at home director for major advertising companies, leading in million dollar clients and developing amazing strategies for her company. It’s so silly to think that these different people would get together.

There is one more major difference between my two parents that I strike as important. My mom is alive and my dad is dead. All of this backstory I have given to you has been about my two parents, yet all this context that I have received has come from my one parent, my mom. I've grown up with an absent father figure my entire life, and didn’t see any issue with it. I developed this internalized hate for my father when I was younger because he left us. He left her. He left me. But as my mom told me more and more, the hate grew less and I saw him for how she does. I saw why he had to leave.

A few years ago, when I was signing up for VECHS in the 8th grade, my mom gave me my birth certificate, since I needed it (I don’t even remember what for). I was filling out my registration form, and I saw his name. I always forgot his full name. And so, me being a silly, simple middle schooler, I googled it. And what did I find? An online obituary. He was gone.

Now being older, I recognize my two parents for who they are, or at least what I know. They were the same, and they were so different, but one similarity stands strongly among the rest.

They both love me.

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